Curling

There's something about this sport.  Forty-two pound granite smart-bombs, space age brooms, indiscriminate screaming, and strategy that is a hybrid of chess and billiards combine to fascinate even the most casual observer.  Curling's ability to grab one's attention and freeze it is a testament to its originality, and even more impressive considering what an inscrutable sport it is.  The first curling match I ever watched was so foreign to me that I spent the entirety of the game with my jaw agape, staring at the TV screen and completely unaware of what was going on, who was doing well, who was losing, or how on Earth either team scored points.  But I was hooked.  

At first I was intrigued by the apparatus.  Granite stones from a specific quarry in Scotland and milled to exacting specifications and weights, with built in electronics to prevent cheating.  Polycarbonate brooms built to be light weight, fast, and customizable.  Painted sheets of ice with hand-prepared surfaces.  And yelling.  Over time I even understood the purpose of the brooms--sweeping the path of the rock allows it travel farther and straighter--and all the yelling: on a sheet of ice 150 feet long, telling the sweepers how hard, or not, to sweep requires yelling--A great deal of yelling.  

As the curling accoutrement became familiar territory and still I was obsessed with curling my fascination centered on the strategy.  The truth is that there is a great deal of strategy in any given curling match.  Each team gets eight stones to throw in each end and only the stones left on the ice at the end of all throwing can potentially score any points.  The tactics behind any given shot are determined by whether you can afford to leave an opponents stone in play or whether it might be more prudent to lay a trap for your opponent with his next stone.  Then the scoring presents strategy of another kind; do you use your last stone advantage or blank the end and keep it on the hopes of scoring more points in the next end?  Do you throw your stones to force your opponent to score so as to gain the last stone advantage in the next end? Each end of every game presents unique tactical conundrums for the team to solve.  

What really keeps me, and others, I suspect, attracted to curling is its unique team-sport qualities.   Most competitive sports are either measured in an individual's achievements or in the collective achievements of a large team and their coaching staff.  Curling is unique in that while it is a team sport, each member contributes equally and has to perform the same feats as every other member of the team.  Also unique is the manner in which decisions are made.  A curling team will stand amidst the stones in the house and poll each other on how best to approach the next shot.  Few strategic decisions, if any, seem to come from a coach and all members of the team are encouraged to weigh in.  In short, it is a friendly, democratic sport that welcomes strategic thinking in which no players are pawns and no serious advantage is handed to the physically gifted. 

It's unlikely that curling will ever achieve the fan base or acclaim of any of the major sports in this country, but it is an easy sport to become enamored with and I believe it has huge growth potential here in the United States.  If the amount of coverage--and therefore critical advertising--the sport is getting from NBC and the press during these winter Olympics in Vancouver is any indication, curling clubs across America will see significant rise in membership in the coming years.