In the not too distant future, spring will return to the American northeast and with it a new Baseball season. Gaelic football will also return for those who like their ball game fast and furious.
Meanwhile, back in Ireland, Gaelic football is being played right now on fields mostly clear of snow while fans everywhere of the Premier Division in England are almost daily being served up an evolving plot that is as much soap opera as soccer.
The winter is prime time for basketball,
of course, while the likes of golf and tennis have migrated to warmer climes such as Hawaii, Abu Dhabi and Australia.
What all these sports have in common is, of course, a round ball.
And while they all have their prime time and place, they are required at this time of year to give some ground, indeed a lot of ground, to sports that require an oval ball.
We're talking here of football, the American variety, and the rugby kind.
We are on the eve of another Super Bowl and what promises to be the caliber of contest that only a local derby can provide.
And New England against New York, when judged on a continental scale, is very much a local derby with all that such a clash implies.
This year's game, this coming Sunday in Indianapolis, also has its share of Irish drama, not least in the pairing of quarterbacks Eli Manning and Tom Brady.
And while the county's most Irish city will be cheering on Brady and his teammates, the Irish of New York and, yes Governor Christie, New Jersey too, will be raising the rafters for Tom Coughlin and his Big Blue stars.
Meanwhile, across the water, the final eight in rugby's Heineken Cup, a competition that is growing in stature with each passing year, has no fewer than three Irish teams in the final eight, they being Leinster, Ulster and Munster.
And soon enough, the boys in green will be togging out for rugby's Six Nations competition, a highlight of the game's ever more crowded calendar.
Some might think of winter days as being awful. But many think in more positive terms, of oval days, and balls that fly in wondrous spirals under a cold blue sky.
