What’s going on everyone, hope you’ve had a good few weeks. Things have been OK for me. I’ve learned over time that as long as you wake up in the morning in good physical condition and you have people that love you, things are going to be all right.
Music to listen to: Lateralus by Tool
I’ve been a major kick right now listening to Tool, maybe besides The Mars Volta, my favorite rock group ever. This song takes me to a positive mental place.
So I’ve developed a love for curling the past few weeks when it was on the Olympics. I would come home from work and immediately flip to CNBC to see the latest games. I guess I wasn’t the only one that caught on because it became the sport that gained the most buzz from what I’ve seen. People were Tweeting about it. The participants, especially the women players, became mini-celebrities, especially Cheryl Bernard from Canada, whose the one in the picture above and known as the “Curgler.” Yes, it means exactly what you think if you say it out loud.
I listed on my Facebook my thoughts about the game as it was going on but I’m going to elaborate about it here with the five reasons the sport is great.
One more thing before I start the list, I’m playing this sport in my future. I’ll get into it more on the list but its gotten to the point that I was looking up the Nashville Curling Club information, but its Web page was down. I would have loved to have gone to the 2010 USA Curling National Championships in Kalamazoo, Mich. From Mar. 6-13 but frickin work is getting in the way.
I have to start training for the 2011 U.S. Nationals Qualifying Rounds in January of that year and eventually go to the World Championships in Esbjerg, Denmark in March.
OK, on to the list
1) The rules are simple. Its like shuffleboard on ice. You throw stones and try to get yours closest to the center than your opponent. Of course there’s a LOT more strategy to it such as protecting your shots, putting out guards, keeping the “hammer” on your end, etc. However, its not as complicated as sports with judges. I can’t watch figure skating because of this, well, I take that back…I can’t watch it because I just can’t sit there with a straight face and see dudes in those outfits performing dance acts. I’m pretty liberal with my sports viewing and respect the athleticism of it but I have my limits.
Anyway, the rules are not difficult to comprehend and the scores are low, which is a good thing.
If curling scores got into the high teens or to the thirties or forties, it would be hard.
2) I could play it. I have some athletic skill but I’m not going to become a luger. Am I going to be a competitive snowboarder? No. Will you see your boy making a run at joining the speed skating team? You already know the answer to that.
This may sound like I’m underestimating the athleticism of curlers and that’s far from it. In fact, the curlers at the Olympics made their sport look easier than it is. I would have busted my butt dozens of times moving across the ice like they did.
What I mean is that I don’t see a specific body-type that you have to be to play curling. I’m a big boy and I can actually see myself being a competitive curler with the proper training. I don’t see that in many other sports, which bring me to my next point…
3) Unique scope of player. In many of the sports that we watch, the athletes are at a physical and mental level above us. Whether it’s the height of basketball or volleyball players, the size of football players, the leanness of track sprinters, the thickness of hockey players, most of us see them and not ourselves.
However, when I saw the male curlers, accept for the Norwegians and their hideous checkered pants, I saw men who were in good shape to perform in their sport but nothing outside of the ordinary.
4) Attractive players. It is what it is. There were some very attractive female curlers in the Olympics. You had some cute Canadians, the Sweden team didn’t disappoint (yes, I catered to the stereotypes), I dug the Danes and their black skirts with black leggings, not in a perverted way, but for it being stylistic. And I fell in love with Carmen Schafer of Switzerland. She’s also above, the brunette in the red shirt.
That was a pleasant surprise for me. I don’t intentionally watch women sports for the attractiveness of the athletes but if it happens, I’m not going to complain.
5) Calm chaos. The beauty to me of a sport like baseball is that it may look like nothing is happening when 20 things are taking place. Before a pitch is thrown, you look to see where the fielders are placed, where the catcher receiving the ball is, the body language of the pitcher, the stance of the batter, what the runners on base are doing, etc. Then the pitch is made and things go into motion.
The same takes place in curling. When a stone is thrown, you see the direction of the throw. Was the stone thrown fast or slow, was it curled, are the sweepers going hard or soft, is the stone going for the center, is it a guard for another stone, is it a guide or setup for another shot.
Most viewers just see somebody sliding a stone down the ice and don’t realize the strategy of it, same as baseball. Personally, I love it.
With many good things in life, there are flaws. Here are mine.
1) The men’s uniforms. I frickin hate to bite off of someone else’s idea, especially with how popular he is, but listening to Bill Simmons, aka The Sports Guy, on his pod cast a few days ago, he suggested the men have jerseys in an American football style and I agree. Seeing Great Britain in their snuggly fit white polo shirts made them look overdressed and I think contribute to their weak showing.
I would say get rid of the Norway pants but if that’s the style that they want, let them.
2) You need ice to play curling. I live in Nashville, Tenn. The amount of locations that have ice are less than say in Minnesota or Wisconsin, which seems like the American hotbed of curling from my limited experience. Similar to ice hockey in America in general, its going to be tougher for some people to play it. You can play football or basketball anywhere. Ice is harder to come by. This may limit the growth of the sport.
3) It has elements of boredom. I love baseball. It was my first sports love, before basketball, football, soccer, mixed martial arts, all of them. However, there are some baseball games that make me want to crawl out my skin. I mentioned all of that cool stuff about baseball and curling and the action but when you have a 2-0 game when nothing really happens, it turns off an American society, me included, that has been trained into the fast pace of football and basketball.
That’s why soccer and hockey will only reach a certain level of popularity in this country. People
would rather see a score of 35-28 or 105-98 than 4-3 or 2-1. We accept it in baseball because the sport has been around for so long.
So is curling going to take over the world? Maybe, maybe not but I’ve been hooked and want to play. Who’s going to join me?
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