My New Favorite Sport

It’s almost 2018 which means the Winter Olympics are on the horizon and, unlike year’s past, I think I might actually try and watch some. Look, to me the Summer Olympics are the glory Olympics and it’s not just because of track (although I’d be lying if I didn’t say that played a role).

The problem is I just don’t get the winter sports. Growing up, when it got to be summer time, I was hype to go outside and run around and play games. When it gets to be winter, I’m just kinda … you know … waiting for winter to be over. Not that there isn’t fun stuff to do outdoors in the winter. I like snowball fights. Honestly, one of my biggest regrets in life is not having more authentic, war style snowball fights in my youth. Building snowmen, while perhaps a tad overrated, can still be an entertaining past time. Personally, I was always a fan of simply trying to roll a ball of snow to the biggest possible size. However, despite an undeniable demand for giant snowball rolling, it’s not an Olympic event (fingers crossed it sneaks into the winter edition of world’s strongest man).

But just because I can’t watch an Elf style snowball fight, doesn’t mean I can’t throw myself into some new sport and still be entertained. I mean, I love America. They are still competing in the games (unless this Mueller-Russia thing really gets out of hand), so surely I can find something involving USA to get behind. I could pick something like Hockey, but that would be too logical (plus, you know, Canada) so instead I’ve found myself diving headfirst into Curling.

By now I feel like most people have at least encountered some form of curling in their life. Maybe they play that game where you slide the things across the table with a bunch of salt on it. Maybe they have a stereotypical grandmother who plays shuffleboard in Florida with Muriel and Ruth. Or, perhaps, they are Pete Fensen, 8-time national champion and the skip of the men’s rink that represented the United States at the 2006 Winter Olympics where they won the bronze medal (the first Olympic medal for the US in curling).

Just a reminder to give to Wikipedia. They do so much good.

For me, I discuss Curling strictly for the joke potential. I mean it seems like such an easy target. It looks like people sliding a circle down ice and then sweeping around it (because that’s what it is) and that seems like a silly game that I feel like people that live outside of Minnesota could find amusing to imagine playing. So this past week, when I watched some of the 2018 Curling Olympic Trials Round Robin action, it was intended to just be a brief session to gather material for the next time I’d like to try and be funny around people I don’t really know. I even recorded a video of me enthusiastically watching it.

But here’s the thing, two hours later, I wouldn’t have had to fake the enthusiasm. I actually got really into the game. Like authentically. I know it can sometimes be tricky to portray sarcasm in print, but this is legitimate interest. It was quite compelling trying to learn about the rules, the scoring and the strategy. After watched some quality matches I would say I am not even close to an expert, but I would also say that I have found at least one niche sport that I can check in on during the Olympics and 1) pretend to be knowledgeable in front of people and 2) potentially enjoy myself.

The first of those two concepts is really the more important to me personally. Look, there’s lots of ways for me to enjoy myself, but looking smart, witty and cool in front of others is not one of my specialties (as you probably guessed since I’m trying to use Curling to look smart, witty and cool). So if you don’t mind, I’d like to practice explaining some Curling things I learned watching mixed doubles Curling on the Olympic channel and then you can tell me how smart, witty and cool I sound. This way I’ll know.

Fact #1: The big thing that you glide across the ice-that is called a rock. Each round is called an End and the team that goes last in each round has the “hammer”. There are 8 ends in a game.

Fact #2: There’s a certain formation that starts the rounds with one rock at the front and another kinda near the middle circle thingy (we’ll get to that). However, there’s also a power play where that is not the starting formation and they move those rocks aside. Which helps you. But I’m not sure why.

Fact #3: You win by scoring the most points. That’s no surprise. But how do you score points? This is where Curling ends up making a name for itself. It’s kind of like Bocci in that you want to have your rocks as close to the middle as possible. It’s all based on how your rocks are close in comparison to your opponent’s. For example, say I am playing against this game named Greg. One of my rocks is closest to the center of the target out of all rocks, but one of his is next closest. So I would get one point. However, if I have the three closest rocks, I would get three points.

There’s no situation where Greg gets points. I’m the best Curler since Pete Fensen and Greg sucks.

Fact #4: Curling involves careful thought to set up your rocks and what not, but there’s a limit to how long you can think for and that timer counts down over the course of each end. I never saw anyone run out of think time so I don’t actually know what happens when you run out. I’m guessing it’s bad though. I don’t if like that’s just it and you lose or you have to just wing the rocks down the ice as fast as possible. The second thing seems unlikely and perhaps dangerous.

Fact #5: You have two different shoes. One is slippery shoe and one is a not slippery shoe. They didn’t look like skates. I’m not sure if you have to have one of each of these type of shoes by rule or that’s the strategy. I don’t feel like it’s the strategy because people slip and wipe out and stuff so it’s gotta be like a wrinkle of the sport or something. Kind of like how in Basketball you aren’t allowed to use your feet. Maybe. Again, much like the one slippery shoe in Curling, I don’t feel like I’m on super solid ground right now.

Fact #6: Sweeping happens. But I have a lot of questions about it. Like sometimes, there’s a lot of sweeping. Like tag team sweeping with yelling and really hard scrubbing. Then other times there’s no sweeping at all. They just slide that bad boy across the ice and let the chips fall where they may. There’s also moments where the other team is sweeping when it seems like they should be sweeping at all because it’s not their turn to sweep. There’s different ways to sweep, some to slow it down, some to speed it up. It’s hard not to get swept up in all the sweeping.

Also, I’m not positive it’s called sweeping.

Fact #7: You better pay close attention at the end of the rounds. Half the time, the teams are coming in and cleaning up before I’ve even had time to figure out who is in what position. Plus, I didn’t see a single referee out there so I think it’s kind of like call your own points. You can’t do that with most sports. Like if they had pickup basketball where you call your own fouls at the Summer Olympics, I don’t feel like that would end well. Every knows you’re not supposed to call anything (that’s the code), but there’s always that one guy who is yelling foul after he misses a contested jumper and messing up the game. I guess Curling doesn’t have any Gregs (yes, I’m using the same name from the first example to describe the guy who calls fouls in pickup).

So those are your facts. I bet you feeling like a Curling expert now, right? OK, well you at least want to watch it when it comes on again? Fine, but maybe you-no, wait come back! I’m ready to talk about figure skating and hockey now!