A Real Life Olympic Curling Story

I’m watching nervously as the thrower begins his throw. I see the 1,000-mile stare in his eyes, the same seen in young men returning from combat. No emotion, just pure, total concentration. His eyes are focused like lasers on the home circle, over 4,500 centimeters away. Few of us could hope to have any aim at such a distant target!

Now, with sweat dripping off his brow, and his arm muscles bulging, the veins looking ready to explode, the thrower moves the stone forward with the strength of a thousand crickets! Further and further he brings it and I find myself wondering how a single human being can possibly move so much.

Then comes the release and the megalith begins its journey down the sheet of cold, frozen, ice. The sweepers are doing their part, their arms and hands moving so fast as to be only a blur. The motion sets their belly fat to shaking so hard it looks as though they are cans in a giant paint mixer! My jaw is dropped, never have I seen such a sight. And the 18,000 gram stone itself is little more than a blur, moving at speeds of up to 20 inches a minute!!

You can see the stark terror in the wide eyes of the men, brandy flasks in hand, of the opposing team as they sense certain doom headed their way. They start looking for avenues of escape lest they find themselves crushed by this enormous projectile.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, after I thought we had transitioned from winter to spring to summer to fall and back to winter again, but in reality after only a few hours, the stone reaches its target.

Oh, the humanity of it. The collision made me think of what it must have been like at the impact of the Chicxulub Asteroid in the Yucatan, an event which erased most life on Earth. Stones now careening everywhere, narrowly missing and sparing the limbs and lives of the players. I watch in awe as the men all are somehow able to avoid a mortal impact! What raw athleticism! The noise of the collision threatens to shake the building down to its very foundations. And now the crowd is on its feet, cheering, roaring and shaking. One woman got so excited she actually tossed her baby clear across the arena, where it fortunately landed on the stomach of a very over-weight man taking a nap.

Then, as the dust settles, the smoke clears, and the reverberation of the din fades away, the thrower looks up and sees that his stone, and his alone, is in the house circle. With jubilation he jumps up, forming a V with his arms. The effort of this however causes him to collapse almost immediately from complete and utter exhaustion. But as he lays there, with his cheek on the hard, cold ice, as the last lights of consciousness flicker from his eyes, he thinks to himself, that he has brought his team one step closer to the most coveted prize, the award reserved only for the world’s truly greatest athletes, the Olympic Gold Medal!

 

Brandy, any one tell you about your natural flair for writing? You may just pen the latest *whodunit* best seller. Just keep curling out of it:-D

 

LOL Brandy, well said! I love curling yet I don't want it in the Olympics for the very same reasons that you stated, the Brier is good enough for me. I believe it's up for review before the 2014 games. Higher, faster, stronger!!!

 

Augie,
I wasn't intending to make an opinion statement. Just some humor that crossed my mind when watching the Olympics.:-D
But I heard they were adding shuffleboard and hopscotch to the summer games.:-D:-D:-D:wave

 

LOL, hey why not? Add some more sarcasm to the fire!:-D

 

roflmao Thats awesome!

Great thread Brandy, an interesting viewpoint and very well written, can't understand how I missed the thread lol