A Sport With Some Serious Stones: We're Talking Curling

In a few months, we’ll all be gathering around TVs and chanting “U-S-A” when the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea get underway. As per usual, the sport of curling will win the hearts of the American viewing public.

Curling is the locust of the sporting world, but instead of rising from the earth every seventeen years to wreak havoc on crops, it emerges every four years and conquers the sporting landscape. Which, if you break it down is nothing short of miraculous.

There are two sports that we associated with our neighbors to the north: curling and hockey. Hockey is the darling of Canadian sports, and rightfully so. It’s exhilarating. The speed, the finesse, and the physicality all come together to make arguably the most exciting team sport on the planet.

Curling has none of that. Except for ice. It does have ice.

Curling offers the excitement of shuffleboard, with the edge of your seat, heart-pounding action of cleaning your kitchen floor. Next time you're pissed off that you’re stuck cleaning your kitchen, tell yourself that you’re actually training to compete for a spot on the Olympic Curling Team. That’ll make things a little better.

Watching curling is interesting. It’s a sport that features relatively simple rules, at least it seems that way from my perspective as a quadrennial curling viewer. I see a bullseye on the ice. I understand how bullseyes work, thus I understand how curling works. Simple math.

So, in between hockey games, luge (another sport that’s a little odd. It’s just a contest to see who is best at gravity.), and skiing, make sure to clear some time in your Winter Olympic schedule for some curling, especially if you want to see a sport in its purest form.

(Or at least watch for the inevitable hot chick on the Russian team. I mean, Russia has a pretty decent batting average as far as attractive women, so I understand how it’s possible that one of their talented individuals wound up on the curling team, but still the entire time you’re watching you’ll be wondering, “How did a girl that hot have nothing better to do than push rocks around and sweep ice? And for so much time that she’s one of the best in the world at it!”)