March 4, 2010
It is the first week of the month of March, and I should be paying bills, writing thank you notes and attempting to sweep the winter street sand out of the garage. Instead, what am I doing?
Reading about curling and still reveling in this riveting Olympic sport.
Yes, curling, the unlikely breakout sport of the Winter Olympics.
I can't help myself. Curling is cool.
Read what Dan Wetzel of Yahoo Sports wrote:
"Six thousand fans packed the suburban curling venue here (Vancouver) for three sessions a day. Ticket brokers worked the sidewalks with marked-up prices. Beer flowed liberally inside. Fans rang cowbells and sang songs. Both the men and the women were hailed for their sex appeal. It was wild..."
Wetzel continued his praise, calling the sport itself a winner in the games, "This isn't your father's curling anymore. The sport received wall-to-wall television coverage in Canada, the U.S., and China...Long mocked as shuffleboard on ice, curling suddenly was cool."
Wall-to-wall coverage? Absolutely. It seemed every time I turned on the television during daytime hours, curling was there. Curling reeled me in and hooked me before I knew what happened.
I admit that at first I did not understand why the "curler" (the one who sends the blue-hone granite stone gliding down the course) was shouting and bellowing "harder, harder, harder".
Are those brooms I see out there on the ice, I wondered? Are the "sweepers" actually sweeping the ice with them?
Curling lingo sounded very Harry Potterish to me.
And yes, I heard the joke that women are better at curling than men because a player has to use a broom and yell at each another in a loud, bossy voice.
Ladies, ignore that.
On to the strategy of the game.
Suddenly an epiphany occurred. I saw the subtlety of the game and felt its intensity, realizing that somehow the curler must send the stone impossibly on a curved path and make it slowly rotate as it slides.
Sweepers, scurrying ahead of the stone, must make the ice perfectly smooth in front of it so the big blue rock will follow that exact path to the "house", the target.
You can see why this curling terminology is as colorful as the game itself using terms such as skips, vice skips, hog lines and hacks.
On the lighter side and in the category of "I wish I said this" are some favorite curling terms as carefully explained online by the notable Potomac Curling Club. I added a few asides of my own.
Vice skip: the player who delivers the teams fifth and sixth rocks. So if the number two player delivers the last shot, does the second curler in the lineup spin the rock third?
Tough shot - Anything the Skip (head who-ha curler) misses.
Crap shot - Anything you miss. Always pilot error, isn't it?
Blanked end - Nobody had draw (where the stone lands) and weight (force applied). I have no idea what this means.
Bury - What you do with your head when you hog your rock in the eighth end. Oh man, I'd hang my head, too, if I hogged my rock.
Double - What you order at the bar when you lose.
Draw weight - Once again, darned if I know.
Inside note to curling fans that are impatient for the next Olympics. The USA Curling National Championship is happening now--March 6 to 13 in the Wings Stadium at Kalamazoo, Michigan.
It's a "spiel", and this time I know what that means.
