Got to hide love (of curling) away
The Winter Olympics are ongoing, so I’m going to make a clean breast of things. I love curling.
I know. Most of my friends consider me a deviant. They’re afraid to go to a bar with me because I might ask the bartender to switch the TV to people shoving rocks and sweeping ice.
What can I say? I am what I am. If my kind are looked down upon when we profess our love, I can only hope such prejudice will someday be a thing of the past.
My secret love started in 2002 when I watched curling intently for the first time. Not to drag anyone else’s name through the mud, but my wife was also turned on. Since we couldn’t watch again for another four years after that, we figured our perversion might be an easily hidden one-shot affair. But there it was on our TV again in 2006 and we became hooked; so much so that we took our addiction a step further, God help us.
We attended the 2006 World Men’s Curling Championship at the Tsongas Arena in Lowell.
Yes, we came right out in the open and dared the world to make jokes about watching paint dry. We couldn’t help it. We were in love. You may say it’s like watching shuffleboard on ice, but there is athletic skill involved, as well as deep strategy. You need a keen eye, flexibility, strong nerves, coordination and, above all, you can’t be susceptible to chilblains.
It’s almost impossible not to make curling jokes. Even someone who loves the sport can see the absurdity of sliding big hunks of granite down a sheet of ice while two guys run along in front feverishly pushing brooms. However, there is a point to that sweeping. If you sweep hard enough, the stone will travel farther. Second, you can influence the direction of the shot. Most important, of course, it keeps the ice tidy. Thank you. I’ll be here all week. Have a Molson and don’t forget to tip your waitress.
When we went to Lowell, we learned more about the sport than we previously knew. For instance, a curling stone weighs 42 pounds. Not so much like shuffleboard-onice now, is it, tough guy? And we enjoyed that there is no “in your face” back-talk from the athletes. And the fans never boo.
Well, almost never. During a tense point in one of the matches, a player slammed his broom on the concrete behind the rink, upset at his team having lost a shot at making the medal round. The sharp sound was followed by an audible gasp from the crowd. Then there was one lone “Booooooo!” from somewhere behind us. Almost as many people turned to look at the guy booing as were looking at the kid who slammed down his broom.
Maybe the game will have a breakthrough this year and I’ll be able to bring my love into the open without shame. Meanwhile, given the lack of curlers in this country, I can entertain notions of taking up the sport and maybe making the Olympic team in 2022. It’s the only sport I can even imagine myself playing at a decent level by then, when I’ll be 64, so for that farfetched dream alone, curling will remain my favorite perversion.
It’s almost impossible not to make curling jokes. Even someone who loves the sport can see the absurdity of sliding big hunks of granite down a sheet of ice ...