Curling used to be for for real men; now it’s for ‘athletes’

SATURDAY MORNING EDITORIAL — The success of our men’s and women’s curling teams at the Olympics has set the scene perfectly for the Brier, which will begin right here in the Tournament Capital on March 1.

It’s hard to believe, but some people still don’t “get” the sport of curling. If you tried to describe it by telephone to someone who didn’t know it existed, you’d be greeted with baffled silence, then confused questions.

“You mean people play it on ice with big boulders? Let me get this straight. They throw the boulders down the ice. Then they sweep the ice. And when all these big pieces of rock have been thrown down the ice, they throw them back again?

“Doesn’t all that throwing just put big dents in the ice?”

Curling is slow, let’s face it. In some ways, it’s slower than ever. Was a time when the object was to take out as many of the opposition’s rocks as possible and wait for a chance to get a deuce by splitting the house.

Nowadays the strategy is to pile a whole bunch of rocks into the house and try to score three with the hammer, or give the other team a golden opportunity to steal three instead. Back then, it was all about staying out of trouble. Now, it’s about taking risks. Slows things down.

We used to get a chuckle out of the Scots and their strange push brooms. We were all about noise and flash — nothing like an inverted-straw corn broom thwapping on the ice and shedding straw all over the place.

And we smoked. Lord, we smoked. They stuck lengths of metal pipe in the boards between sheets and hung tin cans on them for ashtrays.

We wore wool sweaters that were so heavy you’d drown in one if you ever fell in the water. None of this lightweight, high-tech stuff. No custom-made shoes; we glued pieces of plastic on the soles of our sliding boots.

After the game, we’d retire to the bar upstairs and get snockered.

Those were the days. They don’t smoke anymore. Probably don’t drink much either. They work out in gyms. They call themselves “athletes.” It’s not the same.

But damn they’re good. They can draw to the pin blindfolded. They could shoot the eye out of a crow with a curling stone from 150 feet.

It’s going to be some kind of Brier. You should be there.