The madness is here again. After a four year hiatus, the sports you forgot about are back to leave a two and a half week stink on NBC primetime. All your favorites are back from luge to...others, and coverage of your favorite sports on SportsCenter will be interrupted to hear about people named Bjorn winning gold medals. Of course, we'll also have to deal with curling, the sport that fascinates for about five seconds.
You probably have taken a gander at curling during the past Winter Olympics in...uh, *looks it up* Vancouver. So you know the basic premise. It's a bocce ball-shuffleboard hybrid on ice with brooms. They use the brooms to create a thin layer of water causing the "stone" (think, puck) to hydroplane and when they approach the target they use the brooms to slow and guide the stone. The mental strategy involved has earned it the nickname "chess on ice," which is pretty apt in the sense that it conveys how much fun it is to watch. And though we're not convinced the sweepers are actually doing anything, that's the basic premise behind the craze. The sport's deeper than it appears at first glance, and offers up more free wisdom than a derelict on a street corner.
The first lesson that hits you is: Curling sucks. This is stupid. And if you like curling you're either: A.) Trolling. Or B.) Scottish. Because even though Scotland gave us the guy who invented Buicks, we also have to endure their lame ice sport and the overblown coverage its quirkiness encourages. Even though it's presence is almost non-existent, seeing it at all is still a real kick in our big American schlongs.
Like the hole in prison, it's so mind-numbing that it allows a man to think. You learn something everyday. Knowledge is power. And power's the ultimate aphrodisiac. Reading this article will possibly get you laid. Here's What we Learned From Olympic Curling.
