Most of you who know me well are aware I don’t watch a lot of sports. It’s not that I’m weird or anything, I just don’t enjoy watching other people doing what I wish I could still do. This feeling prevents me from enjoying a good football game except, perhaps, when the Green Bay Packers are playing, because . . . well . . . it’s the Packers and I’ve been watching them since before I could walk. Still, I remember what it felt like to play the game, and I just don’t gain any enjoyment at all by watching others do it.
This feeling extends to just about any sport I’ve played in the past or feel I had the capability to play. Using that logic then, the few people in the world who have seen me ice skate can understand why I have no problem watching hockey. My Grandfather used to say he only brought me to the ice rink because I spent so much time on my rear that I kept the surface nice and clean for everyone else. Regardless, my childhood apprenticeship as a human Zamboni aside, I don’t feel any real hesitance to watch hockey, figure skating, speed skating, or any other activity that requires one to move at speed across a slippery field of ice with a pair of melee weapons lashed to the feet.
I do have a hard time viewing sports that I’ve never played but feel that I could have if presented the opportunity. Lacrosse comes immediately to mind—being essentially armed football—as do sports like biathalon and bobsledding. These are a little easier for me to endure watching, but only because the intense element of personal experience is lacking. Still, if given the option, I won’t voluntarily sit still in the stands (or on my sofa) while others compete in these events.
So, what to do with something like curling? Olympic curling, I mean, not the insertion of plastic rollers into my receding hairline! I will admit, when I first became aware of curling in the Winter Olympics, my initial impression was that it was like adding bowling to the otherwise prestigious, international competition. I thought curling might give the “real athletes” a great break. You know, grab a cold one, kick back, and enjoy a good curling session before heading back out to the track or slope to whatever “real sport” in which they were competing. In my mind this rapidly devolved into midnight curling with glow-in-the-dark stones and brooms, and “Welcome to the Jungle” playing at max volume in the background! How awesome would that be?
Funny thing though, the more I watched curling—quite by accident the first time, I assure you—the more it grew on me. Not all at once, however, as I was still making curling jokes when the Sochi Games began, but by the end of those 2014 Winter Olympics, I was hooked. And now, at the conclusion of the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang, Republic of Korea, I look back on the past two weeks and realize curling has dominated my Olympics viewing time . . . and I loved every minute of it!
This was a bizarre realization for me, given everything stated above, as I certainly have what it takes to be a successful curler, right? I’m from Wisconsin, so I was born knowing how to walk across ice—don’t laugh, watch friends from Southern California try to cross an icy street for the first time and I DARE you not to wet yourself!! I can bowl and so have the mechanics of throwing a heavy object down a lane. I’ve played pool, so have a basic understanding of geometry and physics as related to objects interacting on a two-dimensional, low-friction plane. And, if I couldn’t handle a broom before I entered the Army . . . well, let’s just say I can sweep. So, all this being the case, why don’t I hate watching curling? How can I stand to watch something I could so easily see myself doing?
Well, it’s funny, actually, how our own internal issues, baggage, and interests interact sometimes. I’ve mentioned in a previous blog, I think, how much I enjoy historical miniature wargaming. That hobby requires historical research in learning about the army you want to model, artistic ability as you take bare metal miniatures and paint them in accordance with that research, and an understanding of strategy and tactics for when you (finally) get to put your army to the task for which it was so lovingly created; kicking the butt of your favorite opponent on the tabletop. I enjoy other forms of wargaming as well, but for me, it’s the intersection of these three very different elements that, coming together, makes the experience one I enjoy so much.
Curling seems to have struck me the same way, I think, and my enjoyment of the sport has grown with my understanding of it and the slow realization of why I’m drawn to it. There’s clearly a physical aspect to curling that is, perhaps, underrated by those catching their first match during commercial breaks between more traditional Olympic endeavors. While I can easily see myself curling, I’m not so naïve as to think I could right now pick up a stone and toss it with the appropriate weight and have it come to rest anywhere in the house. This ability requires a lot of practice, I think, as it’s a matter of feel—having the right touch—and so probably can’t be taught, but rather has to be learned through experience.
Next there’s a degree of communication between team members that is wholly absent from other Olympic team sports. The Skipper calls the shots and the team executes, but the basic physics of a 40-lb stone sliding on the ice means that the players can—through sweeping—only make the shot go a bit longer, or curl a bit faster in the direction it’s already rotating. What this means in practical terms, then, is that the Skipper decides going into the shot not only where that stone should end up, but also what the shot should accomplish along the way. As well, the Skipper must determine how best to approach both goals at once, sometimes directing the curling of a stone sharply around obstacles blocking the path. This requires an insane amount of communication in a very short period of time, hence the shouting and at times near-hysterical screaming so associated with the sport.
All this leads to my favorite aspect of curling, the strategy involved. The length of a match and the alternating advantage of throwing the last-stone in a given “end,” means that you can’t just throw every shot onto the bulls-eye and hope to come away with a victory. The stones will just keep getting knocked away one-by-one by the other team. The Skipper has to be thinking several shots ahead all the time; when to knock another stone out of scoring position, when to block a future shot, when to snuggle up next to an opponent’s stone in scoring position. It’s an overused analogy, perhaps, but curling really is a lot like a game of chess on ice but with the ability to make it physically harder at times for the other team to remove one of your pieces.
Imagine, if you will, that for a Queen to successfully remove an opponent’s Pawn on the chessboard, the owning player was forced to toss the queen in such a way as to knock the Pawn off the board. Placing your fearful pawn in a position behind a Rook or Bishop might just make the Queen’s shot more difficult, right? Oh, and by the way, to keep with the analogy, wherever the Queen lands after striking the hapless Pawn is her new location on the chessboard. This—to me, at least—is the essence of curling, and I have to say I’m loving it!
And so, as the final competitions wind down and preparations for the closing ceremony spin up, I find myself already looking forward to the next Olympic curling competition. Strange—I know—since that’s four years away now, but it’s true nonetheless. In the meantime I guess I’ll get as close as I can to Olympic curling greatness . . . and go sweep the patio. Ooh! Looks like a large pigeon has shot rock out there!
M. G. Haynes