I’m watching the Tim Horton’s Briar right now, where a bunch of guys are standing around four stones in the house, discussing in detail their potential shots.  They’ve been at it for about two minutes, and then they had to call a one-minute offical time-out.

They’re pointing with brooms, they’re walking all around, and they’re speaking in the careful and intimate depth of men planning serious events.  They’re using words like “slash” and “weight”, “thin” and “nose” and “curl.”

I have no fucking idea what’s going on, and I love it:  I love watching curling.

I can remember for many years flipping past curling when it was on television, or walking through the living room and rolling my eyes heavily at my parents while they watched it.   For so long my impression of ice sports was cleanly divided between hockey (fast-paced, violent, physical) and everything else, such as figure skating or curling (slow, conversational, frequently effeminate).  I wasn’t an obsessive fan of either, to be honest, but I figured that I might as well stray towards the speedier and least homosexual sport.

Enter the Olympics.

I don’t mean this last Olympics, either, the one that made stars of the Canadian teams around here.  I mean at least two or three ago — possibly Nagano — when I had enough free time to sit for hours on end, watching biathlon or endless speed-skating races.  Or curling.

The amazing thing about the game, especially when you’ve just finished watching international hockey, is how incredibly pleasant it is.  When one team is waiting to take their turn, you can watch them chatting:  Sometimes they’re planning their next shot, or even the next two or three; sometimes, though, you can see them smirking or laughing, joking with each other as they wait their turn.

I say you watch them chatting, but you hear them, too.  Everyone has a microphone on them all the time, which I think is totally novel in sports.  You have total access to these people as they compete, and I think I can count the times I’ve heard harsh words spoken on one hand.  Far more often, you’ll hear people apologizing profusely on their way down the rink to their teammates.

“Sorry guys, sorry, I thought I had that one.”

“Just got away from you there, huh, picked up a lot of weight on you.”

“I just didn’t judge it right, sorry.  Sorry.”

The apologizing is, I think part of why Canadians love the game so much.  Not that it doesn’t get loud, though.  In fact, curling seems to be unique in that it’s the only competition where it’s normal to scream at your own teammates.

Namely, totally awesome terms like, “HURRY!  HURRRY HARRRRRRRRD!  HARD HARD!  GOOOOO!  … Right off.  OFF!  Right off!  OFFFFFF!”

If you’ve never watched a game, you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about.  I’d like to explain it to you, but then I’d be talking about ice surfaces and sweeping and skips and stones, and you’d be rolling your eyes at me while you’re on the way to watch hockey.

I’d suggest you try it out, though.  As impenetrable as the rules and the structure seem to be, the game is all the more accessible for the people who play it.  First you’re wondering what the hell they’re talking about when they say they want to lie two, and the next thing you know, you’re fretting about whether they’ll pull off the bump and roll.

And, if you’re anything like me, you’ll be giggling about all the ways you can work, “HURRY HARRRRRRRRD!” into conversation.