Stop the curling bashing!
The Winter Olympic Games are over, and in one way I’m glad.
Now, perhaps, all the curling bashing will stop.
The old line about ‘be careful what you wish for’ probably applies to those folks who pushed hard for curling’s inclusion into the Games because ever since the sport became part of the fivering circus the detractors have come out . . . every four years.
What is it these people have against the sport? Beats me, but every Winter Olympics some of them like to tell you how ridiculous the game is, how boring it is to watch, and how the people who play it are marginal athletes, at best.
The American press takes particular glee in pilloring the sport. Why? Perhaps it’s because their country is traditionally not that good at it, although they did win a gold in men’s this year.
What’s particularly galling is that they don’t understand the game, probably never played it, but are quick to tell us why it comes up short in the ‘wow’ factor. Take Linda Stasi of the New York
Daily News, for example. She wrote a piece in her tab during the Olympics that pretty much sums up the American press’s attitude toward the game:
“This year’s Winter Olympics, probably the most boring and least watched, is so tedious that to liven things up and attract a whole new audience to the Games, they’ve added (mixed) doubles to a sport no one cares about: curling.
In no sport — not even in hockey — have Canadians experienced greater global glory than in curling.
“Yes, now there’s doubles mixed curling, which apparently doesn’t mean you and your best gay friend give each other perms. It means instead of just one gender brushing a big fruitcake-looking thing with a giant squeegee broom back and forth across the ice, men and women get to do it together.
“But the insane sport, which must have been invented by a couple of bored high school janitors who had to sweep the gym floor every night, is about as exciting as these Olympics get. It’s worse than actually eating the fruitcake.”
Thank you, Ms. Stasi, for the enlightenment. Oh, by the way, tell your editors that it’s not Canada’s Kaitlyn Lawes in the photo accompanying your story, even though the caption says it is.
But it wouldn’t be so bad if the curling bashing was limited to our friends south of the border. It doesn’t. The Toronto media, save for excellent reporters such as Bob Weeks and a few others, have never taken to the sport. There’s something about curling that bugs them. What? Who knows? Many of them have never covered the sport, but every four years they pop up out of their foxholes to lob another grenade at curling.
Steve Simmons of Postmedia, who once worked in Calgary and should know a little about the game, was profoundly mean-spirited in a piece he wrote after Canada’s John Morris and Lawes won the mixed doubles gold medal, calling it “an Olympic sham.”
Sham? That’s a little over the top, don’t you think?
His argument is that mixed curling is just a throw-in sport because it attracts TV audiences.
It attracts people to watch? So what’s the problem there?
But worse, he claims Morris and Lawes are not worthy because, unlike other athletes who have trained and worked toward their Olympic goal for years, they travelled a sixlane expressway to the podium. They only practised together once, he wrote, prior to the opening of the Games.
That’s ridiculous. Morris and Lawes have worked at the game since they were kids, putting in as many hours on the ice and in the gym as any other Olympic athlete. He makes it appear like they just picked up the game, practised once, then went out and won the gold medal.
Keep in mind Morris and Lawes had to survive the meat-grinder of the Canadian mixed doubles trials just to earn their spot in South Korea. That’s hardly one practice.
The fact is, they were well-trained, polished athletes when they arrived at the Games, and that’s why they won.
Are some Olympic gold medals more important than others? For sure. Canada’s gold in men’s and women’s hockey will always carry more weight in a country that lives and dies by that sport.
But to suggest the mixed doubles gold is in some way a sham and unworthy is a shot way, way, way below the belt.
Were there other curling bashers out there during the Olympics? Probably. But they’ve gone on to other business now.
It will always be thus with certain elements of the mainstream media. Curling has no place in their hearts. Someone should tell them Canadian curlers keep bringing home world championships and Olympic medals at a steady rate. In no sport—not even hockey— have Canadians experienced greater global glory than curling. We’ve won 52 gold medals (36 men, 16 women) at world championships and another six Olympic gold (three men, two women, one mixed).
But it probably won’t do any good. They won’t listen. They’ll keep ignoring the sport until the next Olympics, and keep voting for anybody but a curler when it comes time to choose Canada’s athletes of the year.
So the negativity will stop for now . . . until 2022, when it will begin anew.