Ex-NFLers Aim for the Olympics (In Curling)
January 5, 2019 5:45 PM   Subscribe

 
I did a full season (two halves) of curling in the local city league a few years ago. It was impossible. The place we did the league play was an open skate ice rink right up until we started league play when it was zambonied and pebbled, and there was zero opportunity to practice or even to get any instruction as the league was new and basically nobody there knew what they were doing.

It was super fun, but also WAY too expensive ($300/half season), and I'd do it again if it also wasn't 45 minutes from my house and held late on Sunday nights.

Curling is WAY FUCKING HARDER than you imagine it is. It's also really social and fun. I wish Canada would let it leak a couple of hundred miles further into the US because I'd be all over it if it were more accessible.
posted by hippybear at 5:50 PM on January 5, 2019 [5 favorites]


This summer I went to a learn-to-curl clinic hosted by our local league and promptly broke my arm. I didn't even make it half an hour. When we got to urgent care, the other patient in the room was getting evaluated for a concussion and possible fractured vertebra -- also from the same learn-to-curl event. We were like a comedic subplot on a medical drama.

I'm certain a team of NFL members is more durable than we were, but I no longer underestimate the sport. It's way harder than TV makes it seem. I wish them luck and hope they can make it, but my last unrealistic Olympic dreams died a cold hard death earlier this year.
posted by lilac girl at 5:56 PM on January 5, 2019 [24 favorites]


I tried for the first time last month, when the temporary outdoor rink near me had a couple of Saturday morning "learn to curl" sessions run by people from the local curling clubs. I spent much of the time being worried about falling on my face.

I mean, when you watch Olympic curling, with people who have spent many years on the ice and so they make it look natural, the basic physics problems don't inherently occur to you. If the stone is sliding rapidly across the ice, the sweepers have to also be sliding rapidly across the ice to keep up with it, or you're just a guy with a broom yelling at a rock. We fortunately made out better than lilac girl, but yes, when I registered for the session, it really didn't occur to me that the fundamental nature of the activity was walking onto an ice rink and not breaking yourself.
posted by zachlipton at 6:02 PM on January 5, 2019 [14 favorites]


Metafilter: just a guy with a broom yelling at a rock.
posted by HillbillyInBC at 6:10 PM on January 5, 2019 [35 favorites]




I used to work at a community rec facility (in Canada) with about a dozen sheets for curling. Every season we had to call the ambulance at least 3-4 times for falls - usually just the ones where people hit their heads on the ice. The worst one I saw was someone who had tripped over a rock in the house; broke his leg and hit his head.

Anyways, I never really picked up the game because I was scared of throwing the rock; it looks easy but keeping your balance while getting a fourty pound weight moving in the direction and speed the skip is calling was just way too much for me as a skinny teenager and I've avoided it ever since.

Best of luck to these guys; I'm sticking to hockey as my preferred sport on ice.
posted by nubs at 6:32 PM on January 5, 2019 [1 favorite]


I'm curious what it is that makes people assume curling is easy. I'll admit to never having tried it and totally discounting the moving-on-ice part, but the "slide a stone a long distance and get it to stop where you want" part has always struck me as something I would be decidedly lousy at. It feels like there has to be something about (American) culture that leads people to assume it's easy.
posted by hoyland at 6:34 PM on January 5, 2019 [5 favorites]


It feels like there has to be something about (American) culture that leads people to assume it's easy.

It's called "your only exposure to it is once every four years and then only at the highest skill levels".

If I could watch curling more regularly on American TV I would, but I really only get it during the Olympics.
posted by hippybear at 6:36 PM on January 5, 2019 [8 favorites]


I once tried to get someone to tell me what curling is, and they just wouldn't define it. It was as if they felt that it transcended any possible propositional statement, which would inherently limit it. It deteriorated to me asking things like "Suppose we go shoot rats at the dump, after it snows. Is that curling?". Eventually, the Winter Olympics came around again, and I could find out.
posted by thelonius at 6:37 PM on January 5, 2019 [14 favorites]


I’ve been curling about four years recreationally, so I have a sense of how steep the learning curve can get. It’s deceptively easy at first, and new curlers often feel like they know what they’re doing after just a season or so. But it’s a sport where experience totally pays off, and I’m regularly beat by 50-year-old rec curlers, with 25 years on the ice, who know exactly the right shot to try and can make them happen every time.

However, a big limiting factor for getting better is just time on the ice. Most curlers have day jobs, even at the upper levels, and can’t afford to spend a ton of time practicing. If these ex-NFL folks have time and enthusiasm and commitment, they could get good very fast. And it sounds like they do: the fact that they scored at all against Schuster’s team is pretty cool.

So I’m a bit skeptical they’ll make the Olympics, but I think it’s awesome they’re trying. In the mean time, one of the traditions of curling is that the winners buy the drinks after each game — so hopefully they’re enjoying all the free beer. ;)

I wish them Good Curling.
posted by a device for making your enemy change his mind at 6:41 PM on January 5, 2019 [9 favorites]


So, this model is not actually all that far off what China has been doing to create their curling teams -- pulling together four people with athletic ability, drive to win and no curling experience, aligning them with coaching, having them practice like it's their full time job and getting them into a hell of a pile of tournaments.

China has been reasonably successful with that model -- Wang Bingyu has multiple world championship medals, as does Liu Rui. They've not been as good recently, but reports are that they're upping the ante in the lead up to 2022.

Will this team be successful? I'm not sure -- it sounds like they only get hands on coaching once a month and at tournaments, and that's one of the things the Chinese really look for. They hired Marcel Rocque -- a member of one of the best curling rinks of all time -- to coach their men's team basically full time in the lead-up to Pyeongchang.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:18 PM on January 5, 2019 [6 favorites]


"Suppose we go shoot rats at the dump, after it snows. Is that curling?"

That's biathlon.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:24 PM on January 5, 2019 [54 favorites]


Where did they find 4 NFL guys who don't have knees busted up so bad that the basic action of drawing isn't so painful that they quit after one match?
posted by Space Coyote at 7:47 PM on January 5, 2019 [2 favorites]


For curlers, Team Allen’s success isn’t just going to be about Team Allen. In the curling world, clubs are booming, participation is at an all-time high, and I couldn’t be happier about it. However, there is a competition gap between recreational players and elite curlers. (Benton specifically mentioned the 24–36 age range.) Some of that has been the High Performance Program assembling what are essentially All-Star teams, but Benton sees an opportunity to fill the gap if Allen’s group can be successful.

I think the misperception of curling as a relatively easy sport stems a bit from its image as one where you can smoke while you play, which is totally not a thing at the professional level anymore, obviously. This story made the rounds last year:

Curling has been a staple of Canadian winters for decades, but there are some things that have changed over the years — like a skip sliding down the ice with a cigarette in his mouth.

Orest (The Big O) Meleschuk knows a little about smoking on the international stage, because he is the skip in a video that As It Happens recently dug up from the CBC Archives.

In it, a younger Meleschuk can be seen throwing an extremely important rock for Team Canada at the 1972 Silver Broom world championship in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Bavaria — complete with a lit dart in his mouth.

posted by mandolin conspiracy at 8:01 PM on January 5, 2019 [2 favorites]


The drug of choice for cheating curlers has historically been beta blockers for their calming effects when precision shots are required so tobacco was really a performance enhancing drug in that era. These days, sweeping is so important that the fitness requirements really preclude smoking.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:08 PM on January 5, 2019 [1 favorite]


If I could watch curling more regularly on American TV I would, but I really only get it during the Olympics.

If you're open to it, a lot of the smaller Olympic sports do live streaming of their events. I find their FB pages to be really useful to follow what tournaments/cups are going on, how Team USA is doing, etc. during non-Olympic years. The US curling website was taking too long to load for me, but this Canadian page looks pretty active.

(I'm a luge superfan, and my issue is that most of their races take place in Europe, so the livestreams happen very, very very early my time on the weekend)
posted by Fig at 8:44 PM on January 5, 2019


Peculiarly, this is happening literally walking distance from my house next year.

I should look into getting tickets.
posted by hippybear at 8:52 PM on January 5, 2019 [1 favorite]


I can watch people do that difficult thing effortlessly LIVE IN PERSON instead of on television. That will boost my confidence, I'm sure!
posted by hippybear at 8:55 PM on January 5, 2019 [3 favorites]


I'm curious what it is that makes people assume curling is easy.

It looks like shuffleboard on ice. My grandpa played shuffleboard. How much harder could doing it on ice be?
posted by backseatpilot at 8:58 PM on January 5, 2019 [1 favorite]


I have been curling for 25 years. The sliding is like learning to ride a bike. Once you get it you're fine, but it's a hell of a slippery climb to get there. And once you can do it, going from competent to skilled takes about a decade. I've seen a few people get it quickly, but for the most part it's very levelling; there are no shortcuts.

I personally think this is a great plan. Sweeping has become a hugely more significant part of the game in the last decade, and on the men's side, the front end guys (who throw the first four stones and generally do the most sweeping) have ripped upper bodies. So football players are extremely well built for sweeping. And the decade I mentioned for getting good is based on playing once a week. It's really a 10,000 hours thing. So if you can devote yourself to full time practice, you can speed the process dramatically.

Once you're able to sweep and throw without falling down, throwing a rock to the spot you want is alllllllllll about feel (the difference in energy you need to apply to throw a guard vs a draw that ends up in the rings is tiny; it's muscle memory). Again, if they can put in the hours, they can do it. I'll be rooting for them!
posted by dry white toast at 9:59 PM on January 5, 2019 [13 favorites]


Also, having played it as long as I have, I recently decided that the best way to describe curling is like chess if the pieces were all the same, weighed 40 lbs., and you had to throw them down a textured sheet of ice to place them. The reason chess is my preferred basis for the analogy is that you have to think 3-4 stones ahead when deciding what shot to play.
posted by dry white toast at 10:05 PM on January 5, 2019 [5 favorites]


So, this model is not actually all that far off what China has been doing to create their curling teams -- pulling together four people with athletic ability, drive to win and no curling experience, aligning them with coaching, having them practice like it's their full time job and getting them into a hell of a pile of tournaments.

Britain literally held open tryouts to find people to form a handball team for London 2012. You get a free entry into everything if you're the host and seemingly handball was the one event where there was no one at a plausibly high enough level (there's bound to be a handball club somewhere, though perhaps with few British members) that they had to start from scratch.
posted by hoyland at 10:16 PM on January 5, 2019


Bowling is just thowing a ball down a lane the same way every time to get a 300 score so easy amirite
posted by benzenedream at 12:53 AM on January 6, 2019


There is a curling center down the road from me and I've heard nationals of various countries plotting to figure it out and enter a team in the next Olympics.
posted by k8t at 5:04 AM on January 6, 2019


I'm curious what it is that makes people assume curling is easy.

Going beyond the obvious "it looks easy", the motions required are pretty basic and easily acquired. But same as with sports like golf just because you have the basic motions down doesn't mean you've mastered them.
posted by tommasz at 5:19 AM on January 6, 2019


Speaking of the cultural spread of curling, something that I learned recently (PDF): Cultural exchange between the provinces of Alberta and Hokkaido - particularly between the towns of Barrhead and Kitami - has helped turn Japan into a rising curling power.
posted by clawsoon at 5:33 AM on January 6, 2019 [2 favorites]


I'm curious what it is that makes people assume curling is easy.

I never thought it looked easy to do at a high level; doing anything at that level won't be.

But, it does seem not-particularly-strenuous insofar as middle-aged people with normal bodies are doing it at the olympics. So strenuous, sure, but like shoveling the driveway, not like running a competitive biathlon. And it doesn't seem like something you have to be a freak to be good at, unlike swimming or women's gymnastics. It's not a sport where if you don't have the perfect body geometry or naturally perfect vision, you'll just never be really good at.

And it has that particular slowish stop/start cadence, kinda like bowling, that makes the game seem designed around people drinking beer while competing.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:01 AM on January 6, 2019 [4 favorites]


Every season we had to call the ambulance at least 3-4 times for falls
Yep; a Toronto Mefite curling meetup ended with an ambulance call.

American football doesn't look that hard: I mean, it's just running and getting brain injuries, right?
posted by scruss at 9:15 AM on January 6, 2019 [1 favorite]


"I wish Canada would let it leak a couple of hundred miles further into the US because I'd be all over it if it were more accessible."

Wait, who's been leaking information about Operation Liberate Minnesota? Oh shit, I think I've said too much already.
posted by el io at 11:09 AM on January 6, 2019 [3 favorites]


They have a curling club in northern Mississippi, so y’all might’ve overcooked it a bit.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 11:22 AM on January 6, 2019


I've really been enjoying the mixed doubles, explained here.
posted by Marky at 1:28 PM on January 6, 2019


I curl. It's right hard.
posted by sonascope at 5:52 PM on January 6, 2019 [1 favorite]


A couple Winter Olympics-es ago we went to an open house hosted by the Potomac Curling Club. I fell while sweeping and ended up with about a six-inch bruise on my hip. One member of our group broke his arm. And we'd totally have gone again if it weren't so far from DC (40 minutes by car, not accounting for traffic, and then you have to drive back when you're done).

I recently decided that the best way to describe curling is like chess

My sister lived in southern Ontario for a few years, and on one visit we learned that there was going to be a big tournament in Waterloo. So we went, and as we bought our tickets at the door they asked if we'd been there before. No, we said, we're visiting from the States. "So this is your first time to see curling?" "Not exactly. We always watch it on the Olympics, but this is our first time to see it in person." "You'll love it! It's like chess on ice!" We asked an usher where to sit. Same thing happened. "You'll love it! It's like chess on ice!" We found some seats. People around us asked the same question. "You'll love it! It's like chess on ice!" My wife went for concessions. "You'll love it! It's like chess on ice!" Reader, we loved it. It was like chess on ice. Four chess matches at a time.

This past Winter Olympics I realized with streaming I could watch all four round robin matches simultaneously on our home theater computer, and not just Team USA. There's enough breathing room in a single match that you can mostly manage to follow four at once, and if you don't need commentary for all of them you can just have the sound on for one match. (And let's face it: if you're already interested enough in curling to try to watch four matches at once, you probably don't need commentary for all four to be able to follow them). You can still hear crowd noises (and some of the louder skips) from other sheets, so you have a pretty good idea when to look over at the other window. I'll admit that I stopped paying close attention to teams that were already out of contention after the first day or two, though.
posted by fedward at 6:10 AM on January 7, 2019 [4 favorites]


Now I'm wondering if Magnus Carlsen has ever curled.
posted by clawsoon at 7:29 AM on January 7, 2019


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