The 36th Annual Grammy Awards : Gentlemen, Start Your Accordions for Polka Showdown! : Grammys: Former winners Jimmy Sturr and Walter Ostanek are going head-to-head for best polka album. It’s a hot but friendly contest.

If CBS thinks it found drama at the Winter Olympics, wait until the network trains its cameras on tonight’s Grammy showdown between Jimmy Sturr and Walter Ostanek.

Sturr and Ostanek are going head-to-head in the best polka album category in an up-close-and-personal duel that has the potential for more pathos than someone’s mother collapsing on “The Montel Williams Show.”

Sturr and his orchestra was a dominant force, a polka juggernaut, having won the best polka album Grammy six years running until last year, when Ostanek and his band usurped the trophy.

Both men also make claims of royalty: Sturr, who operates out of a small town in Upstate New York named Florida, calls himself “the King of Polka,” while Ostanek, who makes his home in St. Catharines, Ontario, bills himself as “Canada’s Polka King.”

This year, Sturr’s album “Saturday Night Polka” will butt heads with Ostanek’s “Accordionally Yours.” Also nominated: Eddie Blazonczyk’s “A New Batch of Polkas,” Lenny Gomulka & The Chicago Push’s “Most Requested Hits” and the Polka Family Band’s “Polka Music Fan.” But the latter are merely the Oksana Baiuls and Surya Bonalys in this tense matchup (of course, Baiul actually won the gold in Lillehammer, so anything could happen).

We asked the two men: Are they gunning for one another? Are they thinking of taking a crowbar to the other man’s hands to prevent him from playing his instrument?

“Not really,” says Ostanek. “All five of us are friends. In the polka category, most guys get along good. Naturally, we’re competitive and want to win. But I can’t see any animosity. If lose, I’ll probably feel blue for a half-hour or so, but the project won’t go down the tubes. But you get 10 times the exposure for winning than when you’re just nominated.”

On the other hand, Sturr says, “Last year when I lost, I got more publicity for losing than I ever did for winning. The papers around home the next day didn’t say who won, they said, ‘Jimmy Sturr Dethroned,’ ‘Polka King Loses.’

“Walter and I are very good friends,” Sturr continues. “I really hate to say this, but I’m almost glad I lost last year. That way, people couldn’t say, ‘Sturr buys the Grammys; he knows somebody.’ Of course, I felt sort of bad--you have to feel a little bad. But I was glad someone else won. Your wins mean more when someone else wins too. It gives a lot more credibility to the awards that I lost the thing.”

And, Sturr points out, “All of the records nominated in the polka category are really good recordings--you couldn’t pick five better ones in that category.” And how many other categories can you say that about when it comes to the Grammys?

All nominated bandleaders save for Sturr play the accordion; Sturr plays clarinet and alto sax (he does, however, have two accordionists in his 10-piece ensemble). Both men have been performing professionally since childhood--Ostanek, 58, began playing on the radio at age 18 and has been leading bands for 37 years, while Sturr, 46, formed his first group, the Melody Makers, at age 11 and never looked back.

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Ostanek has released 45 albums, while Sturr weighs in with an impressive 90 disks, each of which, he estimates, takes only 26 hours’ worth of studio time to produce. Ostanek estimates his albums each sell about 25,000 copies, while Sturr has three gold albums--one sold 650,000 copies. Most of Sturr’s sales come from regional TV advertising. Both men expect even bigger things from their next releases--Ostanek is recording his next album with the dean of polka music, Frankie Yankovic, while Sturr’s album will be released on the respected folk label Rounder. Sturr also hosts a syndicated radio show dedicated to polka music.

Both men tour constantly--Ostanek plays about 150 dates a year, chiefly in Canada, New York, Pennsylvania and the Midwest. Sturr performs about 170 shows yearly, mainly along the East Coast and through the Southeast and the Midwest.

Sturr admits that polka is the Rodney Dangerfield of musical genres--once, when a beer company ran a commercial poking fun at polka, Sturr had it written into his contracts that beer would not be sold at the venues he played.

“My biggest problem is the word, ‘polka,’ ” admits Sturr. “If I didn’t use that word, I would do better. When people hear the word, a lot of them snicker at it. A lot of my music has a country feeling, not because I want to be a country artist, but country is close to polka, and country fans when they hear my music say this is great.” Still, he says, even as a child he had no desire to play anything else but polka music.

Today, however, both Sturr and Ostanek will be in the audience awaiting the outcome of the Grammys. Ostanek says he won’t be too anxious, that he intends to enjoy the ride. “Every time I’ve been a nominee, I’ve been treated super. Even when you’re in the polka category, you’re treated as well as everybody else, no matter how big they are.”

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