Jock Itch Once you go curling, you never go back

The break out star of the Winter Olympics wasn’t a tiny ice dancer. No, it was an entire sport that captivated the world (and a few neophyte Americans); the antithesis of jazz hands on ice: men’s and women’s curling. It seemed to be a consensus favorite of the games, not only for its riveting matches, but also because it looks fun, like you could do it with a beer in hand and still win a gold medal.  

Curling, played by millions all over the world, is the large-scale ice version of shuffleboard at the bar. But instead of a small metal puck, you have a kettle-sized rock with a handle that you slide toward a target on the other end. Get yours near the middle and you score points. At least, I think that’s how it works.

Curling has been around since the 16th century, when bored Scots slid stones on a frozen loch, presumably at a target and not at the English. But it’s only been an official Olympic sport since 1998, and the backyard barbecue quality of it is probably why it gets tagged as a non-sport by the same people who pretend that ice-dancing is one. “We get that a lot,” says Drew Gibson, vice president of the Denver Curling Club. “I would just invite them to come out and try it. It’s a sport of balance and mental strength and it’s easier said than done.”

Television coverage of the sport contributed to the extra attention at the Olympics, and Gibson certainly felt that was a major factor. “NBC did a really good job of explaining the strategy and the chess-on-ice aspect,” he says. “There was 30 hours on MSNBC and CNBC, and on a Tuesday afternoon there were 1.8 million people who had tuned in to curling.”

Including even ESPN’s Bill Simmons, taking to his Twitter to announce his love of the sport, making this observation during the women’s gold medal match: “Who else is waiting for Sweden’s captain to botch this game, then flip out and break the back windows of a Cadillac Escalade?” He went even further on his podcast, as he toyed with the idea of a reality show to decide who the members of the next Olympic team should be.

There was plenty of drama at the winter games—what animal Johnny Weir was wearing being one example—but curling was one of the only things worth watching. Seeing the “rocks” skate down the ice toward the concentric scoring rings was downright hypnotic, and I found myself fixated on the serene backdrop as if it was a mood enhancer pulsing “calm” at me through CNBC.

“We’ve had literally hundreds of people contact us through our website wanting to learn to curl.” Gibson says. “It surpassed our expectations. We planned on a big surge in interest, but this is easily two or three fold the amount expressing interest since the last Olympics.”

I’m a big fan of any activity that involves getting objects closer to a central point than the other guy, and so I’m thinking about joining the Denver curlers at the Ice Ranch in Littleton for one of their beginner sessions starting in April. I may have a rude awakening awaiting me—it’s certain to be a lot harder than it looks—but Gibson feels it’s a sport for anyone. “We have folks in their 70s curling all the way down to teenagers,” he says. “With a few years practice you can make it to an elite level.”

You heard it here first: My quest for Olympic curling gold starts here. But I think I’ll put my beer down first.