When I heard that there was a gold medal match for curling, I couldn’t believe it. Who would give a gold medal for that? My mama could have won that hands down back in the 60s; every Saturday night she rolled our hair with those horrible scalp-piercing brush rollers (that we had to sleep in, no less) and Dippity-Do while we watched “Flipper” or “Lawrence Welk.” But my sister and I had great curls on Sunday morning, and my mother never got the award that she should have.
Wait! It’s not that kind of curling? I tried to watch one of the matches for a little while, but I got totally confused…so what did I do? Wikipedia, of course. Curling came to North America from Scotland, and a lot of Scottish immigrants settled in Canada, which makes sense because one needs an ice-covered pond and rocks to curl, not Dippity-Do and brush rollers, as this Southern girl would think. The players, or curlers, wear shoes that have 2 different soles, one for sliding and one for traction. They use long sticks to “sweep” the approximately 40-pound stones to the target. By the way, the target is not a target, but “the house,” and the bull’s eye is not a bull’s eye, but a “button.” Instead of a frozen pond, curlers play on a long, narrow (146-150 ft. by 14.2-15.7 ft.) rectangle of ice called the “sheet.”
The first match I watched was called “mixed doubles,” and the U.S. players were the brother-sister team of Matt and Becca Hamilton. I watched a while and listened to the commentators and here is what I figured out. The sweeping involves rubbing the ice quickly as the stone rolls toward the house. The friction heats up the ice and makes the stone go in that direction. The one who threw the stone yells to his partner which way to “sweep” so that the stone will end up where the team wants it. The yelling is quite intense, by the way, especially among the all-women teams. Well, you know how girls are….
Herein lies my dilemma. Where exactly does the team want the stone to go? It seems that sometimes they want to knock the other team’s stones out of the house. But sometimes it seems that they don’t want their stone to land in the house. I never did figure out how they scored. The score at the top of the screen never changed, no matter if a team member hit all of the other team’s stones out of the house or if the person landed his stone in the button. I didn’t watch enough “ends” to constitute the entire game, because, quite frankly, I was bored. It was worse than watching golf or bowling, even with Matt constantly screaming at his sister (sibling rivalry, ya’ll). I had first thought the game was like shuffleboard on ice, but as my husband and I watched one of the teams consistently knocking the other team’s stones out of the house one day, his very astute comment was, “This is more like marbles.” Then I heard the commentators say, in very serious voices, that the game is “chess on ice.” I never did get that one, but it also seemed a little like pool to me. Then I heard that the player who is rubbing the ice with this stick that looks a lot like my Swiffer is called the “sweeper.” OK, now I have it! Curling is a combination of shuffleboard, marbles, chess, pool and quidditch.
I asked my office mate here at The Star Herald the next day what she thought about this strange, inexplicable, incomprehensible game. She looked up a couple of things on YouTube, and we decided to come up with our own version of the game, called “Redneck Curling.” Not having a sheet of ice readily available in Kosciusko, we decided that the narrow hallway at The Star Herald would work. Two types of shoes: easy fix, we would wear one shoe and once sock. We have Swiffers at The Star Herald, so the stick problem is settled. But what about the stones? We mulled over the options: a plate, an iRobot vacuum cleaner, a Frisbee. After watching Tara Lipinski and Johnny Weir, however, I came up with the idea of an upside down stainless-steel bowl. That scooted around great for them on the floor of their hotel hallway, and I’m sure it would work for us. What about the target? Sidewalk chalk, of course; it is at the Dollar Tree for, oh, I don’t know, a dollar, and we could Swiffer it off the floor when done. But how we do we score?
Neither of us has figured out how real curlers score, so we decided that when we hit the other person’s bowl out of the target, we get a point. If they hit ours out of the target, we get a point. If we hit the bull’s eye, we get a point; if they hit it, we get a point. It works for us!
Shelley and I have not tried out our Redneck Curling yet, but we are positive it will work. Will it become an Olympic sport? Does Jamaica have a bobsled team? You never know what might happen!
I am happy to report that the U.S. men won the gold for curling, their first ever. Matt Hamilton, in addition to playing with his sister, is also on the men’s curling team. Sweden won the gold in women’s curling, and the mixed doubles curling ended up being quite a soap opera. The Olympic Athletes from Russia won the bronze, but had to return it after the man failed the drug test. The medal was taken from the Russians and awarded to the Norwegian mixed doubles team…great move, IOC! They had already returned to Norway, but flew back to have their own medal ceremony, as well they should have.
As for the rest of the Olympics, I mainly stuck to the figure skating. Unfortunately, this was just not the year for the U.S. After winning the bronze in the team event, America failed to medal in men’s or women’s figure skating, competitions that Americans have historically done well in. The “Shibsibs,” another brother-sister U.S. team, won the bronze for ice dancing, which I was pleased about. I would have loved to see the French team win the gold for ice dancing after her unfortunate “costume malfunction,” but the Canadians were just too good. In the end, the French won the silver and the Canadians the gold, and I loved all of the graceful routines and am always amazed at what those dancers can do. As for the figure skating, I agreed with all the winners, especially the 15-year-old Russian girl who won the gold in figure skating. She was a joy to behold, just as the other Russian girl who won the silver medal was. By the way, I won’t even get on my soapbox about doping and steroids since this column is meant to be lighthearted, but I did get a little tired of hearing “The Olympic Athletes from Russia” over and over. It was about as awkward as saying “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince.”
I enjoyed Scott Hamilton’s commentating very much; I found him likeable and easy to follow. Scott reminded the probably-devastated Nathan Chen that both Scott and Brian Boitano were both fifth in their first Olympics, so I hope that gave Chen some encouragement.
Speaking of commentators, I fell in love with Tara and Johnny when they commentated the daytime events four years ago, and I was glad that NBC realized that they had a hit with them and put them in prime time this year. They were a joy to watch. They kept it light-hearted and fun, but were serious when necessary. I never did figure out why Terry Gannon had to be added to their great comradery. He was the straight man, I guess, and they did enjoy picking on him for not matching them with his clothing choices (as if anyone could match Johnny) and not having “bling” on his microphone, until the last night, that is.
For me, the break out star was Adam Rippon. After his great program helped the U.S. win the bronze in the team event, Andrea Joyce interviewed him, and his first words, “Well, Andi,” endeared him to me. I looked at my husband and said, “Watch; he’ll be commentating soon.” Sure enough, he was on the figure skating preshow a day or so later answering questions about skating, falling and his eyebrows. By the way, they are not natural. He goes to a lady in Hermosa Beach to get them dyed. When he looked straight in the camera and said, “Well, this is not the face I was born with,” I was hooked. Adam has personality plus, and he is 28.
Since 32 is a little advanced in age for a figure skater, I would love to see him join Tara and Johnny in the commentator booth at Beijing. The three of them could be unstoppable.
Other memorable moments for me were Johnny’s hair (you couldn’t miss it), the U.S. women’s hockey team linking arms and singing “The Star Spangled Banner” after winning the gold, the way words like “Zagitova” and “Medvedeva” rolled off the tongues of Johnny and Tara, the poor sportsmanship of one of the Canadian women’s hockey silver medalists, and the way Johnny fell silent and didn’t comment while American Marai Nagasu skated her free program to “Papa, Can You Hear Me.” His reason? “You don’t talk over Streisand.”
Even though I still don’t know what real curling is or understand terms like “axel,” “salchow,” or “undercurl,” I enjoyed the 2018 Olympics immensely and will definitely be looking forward to seeing Chen and Nagasu in Beijing and rooting for them to medal. As for curling, I will probably watch some of it again to try to crack this enigma, and don’t give up on “Redneck Curling.” After all, beach volleyball is an Olympic sport.
