Dearest Readers,
While many of us enjoy the winter Olympics for the downhill skiing, the figure skating, or the snowboarding, I’m here today to talk to you about curling. In layman’s terms, the sport is essentially shuffleboard on ice. It consists of hurling rocks down an ice path, while your teammates use a broom to clear the stone’s path to a target. One team tries to get more stones on the target than the other. The question of the day: what kind of sport is this?
Now don’t get me wrong, I respect all athletes. (As someone with no hand eye coordination, I respect those who can communicate between their brain and their limbs). Still, I am curious as to how this sport came into existence and how people discovered that their life would be spent as a curling athlete.
While discussing this in my dorm’s common room, we came up with several theories. One day someone said, no shuffleboard you are not enough! I must play you on ice for added challenge! I will wear special shoes, not skates, and use brooms for funsies!
This may be an Olympic sport, but I have no idea what they do for the rest of the year. How did they even become involved in curling? Who scouts these athletes? You sir, look like you would be an excellent curler, I can see that you have a natural talent for sliding objects across tables…yay hurrah! Do they have coaches? Yes, I've been curling for about 30 years now.
How do they train?? Do they lift? Imagine going to your boyfriend’s house and when his parents ask you what you do for a living, you say that you are a professional curler….yeah hokay, that’s not going to go over well.
Another important aspect, the reporters speaking about curling during the Olympics spoke about their knowledge of strategy in curling….how do you get vast knowledge of curling? Do they wikipedia it immediately before hand? If I say I have a lot of experience with shuffleboard, could I be hired as a journalist reporting about curling?
Please, all curlers out there do not be offended, it’s not that I don’t respect you, it’s that you fundamentally confuse me. I'm sure, however, that this same confusion could be said of any sport. Who invented bocce ball? Why do people ram into each other for a 'pigskin'? And who ever thought that putting blades on your feet and skating around would be a good idea? It's all absurd if you take a moment to think about it.
Lesson to be learned: You may have a hidden curling talent that you don’t know about or you could be the inventor of a new sport that just might make it to the Olympics. What are you waiting for?! Go!
Confoundedly yours,
Adorkable
My favorite thing about curling is it's just normal people. Here's my favorite curler, a bartender/golf course groundskeeper who's trying to improve on his bronze from Torino: http://curling.teamusa.org/athletes/john-shuster
ReplyDeleteHe makes me think that someday I, too, could be an Olympic athlete. Apollo Anton Ohno can't say the same.
I think the sport of Curling is practiced in Pubs with beer mugs being slid down a long wooden bar. The majority of the time, a large amount of beer is consumed. Does not really seem like a sport to me!
ReplyDeleteAs a proud Scotsman, I am appalled by the friviolty of the comments made in these posts, which ridicule one of the greatest sports in the history of mankind. You see, curling (called “curlin” at its origin) came from the minds of ingenious Scottish men who were longing for a new game to play on the ice ponds of the Lowlands.
ReplyDeleteThe origin dates back to the 15th century and involved the tossing of unevenly shapes rocks over unpredictable ice shelves…….and most probably involved much drinking and cussing. The advanced “Scottish version”, today’s version, which has been mostly unchanged over it history began in the 17th century.
Today, one million people belong to curling clubs throughout the world, but 90% of them are from Canada.
Curling involves the kind of precision, grace and stamina that is rarely seen in other sports. It takes great intellect to analyze the most effective way to throw one’s stone to maximize your score, while leaving your opponent with no opportunity to turn the game around on you by blasting your stone out of the house or leaving it closer to center.
The sheer beauty of seeing a Skip launch his or her stone with the exact amount of “weight” to accomplish its goal is stunning. The use of physics by the Vice in brushing frantically to slow down a stone that was “thrown to heavy” is both fascinating and exhilarating.
This excitement is matched only by the breath-taking outcome of the stone entering the house and gracefully stopping in its intended spot, or ricocheting the opponents stone out of the house with reckless abandon.
No, curling is not for the weak minded or weak of heart. The courage and athleticism shown by its athletes is unmatched in the world of winter sports.