Olympic Fall-Out: Why Can’t We Curl?

Lissa Richards is a web geek and wanna-be world traveler who currently calls Harrisburg home. She was lucky enough to travel to the Olympics in Vancouver and gracious enough to write guest posts for the Spotoblog. If you have any questions about her experience, you can find her on Twitter @LissaRich. Take it away Lissa:

Curling appears to be the sleeper hit of the 2010 Olympics. When I tell people about attending this year's Winter Games, people are more interested in hearing about the curling matches than the Russia v. Slovakia men’s ice hockey game. An offensive line with Malkin, Ovechkin and Kovalchuk—and they lost! But no, it’s all about brooms, skips and those Norwegian fancy pants.

While America is seemingly just discovering it, curling isn’t a new fad for Canada. Canadians curl. From chats I had with Canadians at the two matches I attended, curling seems to be almost as big a part of their sporting culture as hockey. I don’t know if it’s as commonplace an amateur activity as bowling is in the U.S., but most of the Canadians I spoke to at the matches had participated themselves at some point. A 50ish mom sitting behind me has been in a curling league for the last 15 years, and the two friends with her were also in leagues. A young man in his early 20s grew up curling and followed the Canadian curlers like you’d follow PGA golfers.

And boy, do the Canadians get into it! The curling crowds at this year’s Olympics were wild, and unprecedented. From what I was told, curling spectators are usually on the quiet side and are very respectful of the throwers. Not this year; particularly not when the Canadian teams were on the ice. Each throw from the Canadians brought whoops and cheers. You might have heard about that poor Danish athlete brought to tears when the din created by the Canadian fans affected her concentration. The Canadians just couldn’t contain themselves! Other countries’ fans were a presence as well – I noted one costumed American (think patriotic cowgirl) with an electronic music-playing megaphone. The cowbells never stopped, and whenever the Canadian team scored a point the place jumped like an arena during March Madness.

Curling will most likely never whip American fans into the frenzy it does for the Canadians, but the Winter Games are sparking an interesting in curling here at home. As far as I can tell, central PA doesn’t have a curling club. But Pittsburgh and Philadelphia do, and both held Olympic open houses this past weekend that drew record crowds. The word is that both clubs’ open houses saw waits of over two hours, with about 1,000 attending in each city. Patient curling fans received sweeping instruction and had the opportunity to try hurling those 40 pound stones, which by all accounts is much harder than it looks. The Olympic curlers make that glide look easy, but more folks at the open houses were falling over than successfully getting their rocks down to the other end of the ice. Looks like my bizarre talent at bar shuffleboard may not translate as well to curling as I thought, but I’m ready to try it! Any central PA curling fans looking to start a club?