CURLING
Coverage continues through Friday. Today at 4 p.m. on CNBC (we know, not even a real channel!), you can see the USA men curlers take on Sweden. The women and men’s finals are Thursday and Friday, 5 p.m., on CNBC.
Sadly, it’s probably not the most-watched sport on ice at the Olympics, outside of my house.
But somewhere down the line is a sport I couldn’t catch enough of at the 2010 Vancouver games – curling.
Despite the name, it’s not a hair-care event. But perhaps Miss Clairol should sponsor this sport.
Curling involves 42-pound, polished granite stones with handles on top, and a 150-foot ice lane or sheet with four concentric rings at the other end. You slide your stones the length of the lane, with sweepers changing the contour of the ice to speed or slow the stone’s progress. The goal is to end up with your stones closest to the center ring to score the most points.
Without getting into fine detail of blocking and other tactics, let’s just say it appears to be a fine way for someone to spend an afternoon who is not particularly athletically inclined, or someone who is nearing the north end of middle age. For heaven’s sakes, a pregnant woman has competed in this sport at the Olympic level.
The Canadian men and women are commanding favorites to win gold at this year’s Olympics in Sochi, Russia, but don’t be surprised if the American women sneak in there for a medal. They are fifth among oddsmakers (yes, people bet on this) with an 18-to-1 shot to win gold. The American men? Not so much. You could make a bundle on their 50-to-1 odds, however.
At the risk of oversimplifying the sport and absorbing the wrath of those who have participated in it, here are five reasons curling should be more popular than it already is:
1. Think of it as shuffleboard on ice. There's an instant South Florida connection.
2. Other than baseball where the umpire has a tiny broom to sweep off home plate, it's the only other sport I am aware of that uses a broom (or brush) as an intricate part of the game.
3. If your curling skills aren't as good as you'd like, remember, at the end of the day you can always blame the ice conditions and no one will argue with you.
4. Teflon shoes for sliding on ice. What's more cool than that? You don't even need to know how to skate, a plus for us native Floridians.
5. And finally, the best reason to like curling, the Norwegian men's team pants (and jackets, too). In what other sport do the pants of the competitors have their own Facebook page? Can 547,000 "likes" possibly be wrong?
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