Winter Olympic Musings – Part III

The Dream Team

My suggestions for changes to the Winter Olympics were received with great enthusiasm by most people; however, there is one group who gave negative feedback. I received push back so powerful it could only come from the rough and tumble curling crowd. The suggestion that curling be dropped brought an onslaught of dissent. I have been hit with curling brooms by angry fans. Twice I have been getting into my car on icy parking lots only to be hit in the ankle by a curling stone. I didn't see who did it. I only heard cries of "It's about strategy, stupid."

Because of this I made a point to watch curling while on the treadmill a couple of times. I will try to ignore the irony of me working my guts out sweating and panting while watching four guys stare and slide rocks on ice for Olympic gold. C'mon  guys please try to sweat a little. I guess I didn't ignore it too well. Sorry.

While I was watching the camera pan over to the stands and show a guy coming down to the ice. When he turned, I could see his jacket said COACH. I smirked and wondered, what does a curling coach do? Rather than spending sleepless nights wondering, I decided to call team USA's curling coach and interview him. Despite a rigorous schedule interviewing with various papers from Idaho and Montana, I was able to get a few minutes with him on Skype. Here is our enlightening discussion.

Me: Hi coach thanks for talking with me.

Curling Coach: No problem. Thanks for asking me, eh. Let me just finish this power bar.

Me: Uh....coach, that looks more like an apple fritter.

CC: Well for curlers this is training food. Its shaped like a curling stone, and they're  huge which gives us something to do during matches. Also, about an hour after you eat a couple, you go into a sugar trance which prepares us well for staring.

Me: Don't they slow you down?

CC: Slow us down for what?

Me: Er...good point. Well, what do you do for training?

CC: We look everywhere for opportunities to sharpen our skills. If we are at a bar with an indoor sawdust shuffleboard game, we will work out there. We often go to retirement communities and use their shuffleboard games, but they have too much friction, and we also get friction from the retirees. (laughs) Anytime we can find opportunities to slide things into strategic positions we go for it.

Me: How about conditioning?

CC: Conditioning? Air conditioning?

Me: I mean getting in top physical form.

CC: Well we all want to be in top physical form, and we all plan to do that when we retire from curling.

Me: What about building your physical endurance for the Olympics?

CC: We do practice staring a lot. Its really quite difficult because we stare at rocks which usually don't draw much attention. We go to zoos and find owls to challenge to stare-offs. Mannequins work nicely for stare practice too.

Me: What about people who claim curling should be out of the Olympics because it is not a real sport?

CC: That's absurd. Let's see Lebron James work a curling broom on ice without falling down. I doubt he can even use a kitchen broom. There are no slam dunks here. Just because we don't coat our bodies with tatoos and hang out with rap stars doesn't mean we're not athletes. We get tired of people ripping on us on this. It almost makes us want to lift weights. This sport is very strategic and dangerous.

Me: Dangerous?

CC: Yes. If you doze off during one of our stare sessions you can fall on the ice and bump your head.

Me: Any advice for aspiring young curlers out there?

CC: Don't give up on your dreams.....maybe you can accomplish them after curling.

Me: Thanks coach.

CC: Thank mmm. (muffled as he bites into another fritter)

That sure helped me out with my negative thoughts on the sport of curling. I am going to go right out and buy my kids some curling stones.

Let's go back to Samuel - next post.