GREAT ARTICLE EXPLAINING CURLING’S APPEAL
Sports Illustrated, who has too much emphasis on the sexy babe for my taste but has fabulous writers, had this piece on curling by Austin Murphy. I learned that 1,300,000 people curl around the world and all but 200,000 are in Canada. I also agree with this:
“You want to see a competitive team,” said [Canadian] team member Marc Kennedy, “you just gotta see us play cards against one another.”
If you are tempted to reply, “Yes, Marc, that would probably be more interesting than sitting through 90 minutes of curling,” that can only mean one thing: You’ve never seen curling in person.
Curling’s appeal for me is the brainy excitement and the ability of one well-placed stone to change the entire game in one second. it requires deep thought and better control of where the stone goes. Alas, still no curling in Richmond, Virginia where I live. (For more on curling or the find a club near you, go to www.curlingrocks.org)
The sweeping does more than just lightly melt the ice, it also removes tiny particles that slow down the stone. As one of the Canadian team members told Murphy:
“The ice is pebbled,” explained James Prette, who was sitting behind me on Tuesday as the home team put the wood to China, 10-3. “When you sweep, you’re melting those little pebbles, which allows the stone to slide faster.”
And there’s hope for older folks like me:
“Curling is huge in this country,” says Prette, who lives in Vancouver but grew up in Saskatoon. “Especially in the prairie provinces. When you’re too old for hockey, you curl.”
I never took up hockey primarily because I wanted to live long enough to vote for Reagan! But I am clearly too old for hockey in any event.
My grandparents in Florida (they lived in Florida most of their lives not snow birds from the North) used to play shuffleboard and I was fascinated by that. Curling has elements similar to shuffleboard but is better all around. But I seldom got to play shuffleboard as a kid!
I recommend the article in full. I especially liked the explanation of the Canadian skip or captain, Kevin Martin:
Canada’s Kevin Martin is the skip of skips, his shot-making skills the stuff of legend, his talents as dazzling as the TV lights reflecting off his bald pate.
The first recorded curling match was chronicled (in Latin) in 1540 by a Scottish notary who wrote about a contest between two monks. Coincidentally, Martin, the best player of the 21st century, resembles a kind of monk… or emergency room doctor. Unassuming, modest, devoid of flash, the 43-year-old Martin is enormously popular in this country — largely because he is an almost perfect reflection of it.
“Oh jeez, no,” he replied, when informed that another coach had described him as curling’s Michael Jordan. “I don’t think of myself anywhere near that. We’re an amateur sport.”
According to Murphy, Martin’s teams have done very well in an amateur sport.
I’ll defintely root for Canada today but only in curling! May they own the podium. But we’ll get you next time!
