My Guilty Pleasure of the Winter Games

MY GUILTY PLEASURE OF THE WINTER GAMES

HARD! HARD! HURRY HARD!!!

This is NOT the soundtrack of a cheesy 1980's adult film. This is the soundtrack of Curling, a bizarre scottish combination of shuffleboard,ice,brooms,and a whole lot of yelling. It sounds wierd, it IS wierd, and I can't get enough of it.

I must explain that, if you grow up in Detroit, you get the CBC on your local tv, and that means, that as well as "Hockey Night In Canada", you get this funny sport(that is hugely popular in Canada) on Saturday afternoons in the wintertime. I remember watching with my mother on a fair number of Saturday Afternoons(when she wasn't watching bowling), in the late 70's-early 80's. For some strange reason, I find the yelling hilarious, but yet fun, fun, fun(I never got to drive Dad's T-Bird, so "Daddy takin' the T-Bird away" wasn't an issue). So, four years ago, you can imagine my excitement(The Mrs. cannot), when I found Don Chevrier and Don Duguid(two old-time Canadian curling announcers) doing the olympic matches on the NBC cable channels.

The great thing about olympic curling being on the U.S. cable channels, is that, unlike other sports durling the winter games, I actually know what's going on! If an announcer says so-and-so is "curling 78%", I know he or she is making 78% of their shots go where they want them to. I also know "shot rock" is the rock that will score points at that moment.

The teams consist of four players, The first, second, third, and the skip(the captain, also the last to go.) The object is to curl the rock as close to the bullseye as is possible, without getting it knocked away. This leads to strategy shots, such as purposely throwing rocks that have no chance of scoring, so as to set up a guard for a susequent shot. The yelling comes in, when the shooter is trying to direct the sweepers as to how fast or slow to sweep the snow, since the amount of snow on the ice can dictate how fast or slow the rock travels, as well as where the shot will stop.

The most infamous yell in curling is HARD!!!!HARD!! HURRY HARD!!! Which, as I mentioned at the beginning, while it sounds like an old adult film soundtrack, actually means "SWEEP THAT SNOW AS FAST AS YOU CAN!!!" The shooter says that because they let the shot go too soft,they don't want the rock to stop too soon, and if their teammates don't get on it, the rock wil die out, possibly even before it reaches the "hog line", which means the rock did not go far enough to stay in play, therefore the shot is wasted. "LAY OFF IT" should be self explanatory, but if it isn't, means "THIS SHOT IS COMING IN TO HOT!! DON'T SWEEP IT, WHATEVER YOU DO!!!"

I am telling you, if you give curling a chance, it should be lots of fun during the Vancouver games, and since the games are in Canada, the sport should be a smash there. Last, but not least, My daughter and I will drive the Mrs. nuts during the matches, since the Mrs. is NOT a fan! If nothing else, my daughter will have some fond memories of her old man when I'm long gone.