Curling

Curling is one of those “sports” you watch when there’s nothing else on television. For me there has to be absolutely NOTHING else good to watch, and this includes commercials that I haven’t seen a zillion times before I’ll bust a move to watch something as inherently asinine as curling.

I guess I just don’t get it. I’m amazed this nonsense is an Olympic “sport”. From what little I understand of it here is how it works:

One man or woman scoots a large “shooting rock” down an ice covered floor while two or three other “players” work their sticks back and forth around the sliding rock trying to get it to go where it needs to be. I assume they are attempting to smooth the pathway in which they want to direct the half-basketball-sized rock. I would hope the participation in this spectacle is more rewarding then the observation because if it isn’t then HELLO, these people need to get a clue!

To further drive this madness no one seems to be in any particular hurry to do anything. They will call time out and huddle discussing angles and strategies but I half expect them to break out coffee and doughnuts and to join the audience in the bleachers! Nothing much is happening as they shake and bob their heads in disgust and bewilderment. I don’t know how, or even if, they keep their concentration. Honestly, they remind me of a bunch of weekend mechanics huddled around a car who’s engine just died and they don’t know what do about it which is signified by a lot of head and chin scratching.

But at some point the “team” gets their act together and decide to give the stone yet another shove down the court. And with the Canadian audience there is a lot of hooting and howling as their countrymen apparently “do well.” I have no idea how that is achieved nor what constitutes a “score.” The best I can make out is that the stone which ends up the closes to the centerline within the targeted “zone” is a “good stone.”

Describing this activity is almost as lame as watching it. I have no idea what Canadians see in this and even less as to why Americans would participate. But there you are yet another ridiculous Olympic “sport” for Americans to lose.

I don’t believe anyone is a “born natural” for this sport. It’s not like football or basketball or baseball where one is “gifted” or not. To my way of thinking curling is something one falls into when they discover they aren’t any good at real sports. In that sense it has a lot in common with golf.

Now if they were to suddenly pick up those rocks and toss them at one another we might have the makings of a real sport! At least then you could clearly define the winners from the losers. But as it is I’m left scratching my head to hear that the Americans lost, “Get the hell out of here!” Says I, “THEY DIDN’T DO ANYTHING HOW CAN THEY POSSIBLY LOSE?”

I know what you’re thinking, I know. You’re saying that curling isn’t as easy as it looks and therefore deserves a spot in the Olympics. But, neither is falling down a flight of steps easy. I wouldn’t want that included as an Olympic sport either.

To the American men’s team I would say, take heart, if you don’t tell I won’t tell anyone you lost and it will remain our little secret.