On the joys of curling

The Olympics are over and now it is time to reflect back what I learned, which is this: Curling. Is. AWESOME! I know, I know, the Olympics were 3 weeks ago, so this is pretty late, but I promised talk of curling, and that's exactly what you're gonna get.

I must admit, that when I first started watching curling, I was watching only for the sheer novelty and silliness of it. I mean, the Norwegian men were playing in pajama pants for crying out loud! But the more I watched, the more I realized that curling is a sport, a ridiculous sport, but a sport nonetheless. When you watch a team drop a deuce in the bottom of the end... I mean, when they put the rock right on the button... ok, so some of the terms are a little weird, but still, you gotta respect someone who can stick one knee into their chest with the other leg dragging behind while sliding on a Teflon covered shoe directing a 46 pound rock into the center of a 12 foot circle 60 feet away. can you even get one knee to touch your chest while sliding on ice? I mean, on purpose? No? I didn't think so, you should really work out more.

Anyway, part of the reason I got sucked in was the level of competition. Imagine tuning into baseball for the 1st time and seeing every game settled in the 10th inning by one run. Matches that close tend to appeal to the competitor in all of us. On top of that, you have a Canadian home crowd cheering like this is the Super Bowl. 20,000 toque wearing Canadians screaming over curling. It's kind of Awesome. At one point, the Canadian men were down one rock to the Swedes in the 11th end, and the Canadians had the hammer (to the uninitiated, I'll translate: "the Yankee's were down by one run at home in the 10th inning to the Red Sox") when the Canadian home crowd spontaneously burst into and an acapella version of "O Canada." The match stopped dead until the crowd finished. Then the Canadians came back and defeated the defending world champs. How can you not be moved by that?

I mean, these are athletes who get excited when 2,000 people watch, let alone ten times that many. It's pretty special. In fact, the crowd was so into curling THAT THE PA ANNOUNCER HAD TO TELL THEM TO SETTLE DOWN! At one point, a girl on the Dutch team cried because the crowd was so rowdy. So now we have spontaneous singing, screaming crowds, and cute Dutch girls crying, would you change the channel? Reality TV wishes they had this much drama.

If you're wondering why people were so upset at the noise, imagine trying to hit a golf shot, only you're on ice, the ball weighs 46lbs, you don't have a club, and people are screaming at you. I think you'd get a little rattled too.

To sum up, curling is awesome, and it sucks to be you if you missed it, cuz now it will most likely be 4 years before you get another chance to watch it, and the Mayan's say will be dead in two, so you really missed out on something special.

That's about all I have to say about curling for now. I'm more of a roller derby fan these days though. But that's a blog for another day.