Anyone watch Olympic Curling?

Curling just took on a new dimension:

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/35439222/ns/today-today_in_vancouver

The US Women's Curling team is endorsed by a condom supplier with a product named "Hurry Hard". They are just part of the 100,000 condoms supplied to atheletes, courtesy of the Olympic Committee.

oldsaw wrote: Curling just took on a new dimension: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/35439222/ns/today-today_in_vancouver The US Women's Curling team is endorsed by a condom supplier with a product named "Hurry Hard". They are just part of the 100,000 condoms supplied to atheletes, courtesy of the Olympic Committee.

That almost deserves its own thread.

Curling rocks!

Canadian curling team captain

http://www.teambernard.com/images/07%20provincial/Draw07_DSC_0022sm.jpg

Go Canada Go!

In reply to profpenguin:

Bad link!

I guess a lot of guys watched the show, had the same idea and crashed the site.

From TIME.com:

One of the toughest places for the volunteers to operate, it seems, is the curling venue. "I find that there's a lot of drunk people at curling," says Sue Andrykew, a mail carrier from Windsor, Ont., who took a month off to volunteer and is crashing on a friend's futon. A few days ago, a woman screamed at Andrykew, demanding that she move some people who were blocking her view of the sheet. As if that's not bad enough, too many smokers are lighting up in nonsmoking areas.

oldsaw wrote: In reply to profpenguin: Bad link! I guess a lot of guys watched the show, had the same idea and crashed the site

Enjoy it while you can http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/vancouver/curling/news?slug=dw-curling021810&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Don’t take curling for granite

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Jutting its rounded self from the waters off the west coast of Scotland is Ailsa Craig, an uninhabited 104-acre island that’s home to the only known supply of the granite needed to make a proper curling stone.

It’s called blue hone granite – an intensely hard substance that is uniquely suited to slide smooth and true down a 146-foot long sheet of ice, withstand countless crashes into other stones and prevent even trace amounts of moisture to seep into it. That would cause it to pit and thus move unpredictably.

Curling stones are made of blue hone granite from Ailsa Craig off the Scotland coast.

(Alex Livesey/Getty Images) “This is the best type of granite in the world for this type of purpose,” said Donald Macrae, managing director of Kays of Scotland Curling Stones, which has exclusive rights to the island’s granite.

You could say without blue hone granite there is no sport of curling. The Olympics refuse to use anything else. There’s only one problem.

“It is not going to last forever,” Macrae said.

Yes, one day Kays is going to run out of granite and curling is going to run out of stones. It’s a strange concept, like if the world just ran out of baseballs, ending – or changing – the sport forever.

Hey! There's some hot curling chicks!

Monica Gellar?

I watched Canada vs Finland the other day. Riveting.

I enjoyed the scenery and there were some incredible shots (or whatever you call them in curling), but I agree it is way more of a game than a sport.

My big takeaway was wondering why they have both mens and womens curling. Couldn't that be a sport(game) where men and women compete evenly? Couldn't there just be curling? Are women better with a broom? What is the idea of splitting that one up?

I understand splitting up sports where men would have an advantage in size/strength./speed, but which sex has an advantage of sliding a rock on ice?

At the club level, there is coed curling, even at the provincial/state championship level. Top level curling is always segregated. Before the advent of the push broom, sweeping was done with long strand corn brooms. Back then (early 80's) men could generally out sweep women. A corn broom was very hard work for the sweepers. That's probably some of the reason sexes are segregated, men hand a distinct sweeping advantage and could throw lighter and get more curl, but could make up the distance with their sweeping.Whenever I curled coed, the skip and second were always mas le. Lead and third were female. It used to piss off the women in the club, many of whom were actually better skips than their male counterparts.You would build up some pretty good arm and shoulder strength if you curled 2 or 3 times a week.

I've watched it two evenings now. I have been a competitive shooter for 50 years but, the concentration, precision and physical fitness required in curling looks to be an order of magnitude greater in curling.

Question for the experts. As the stone was being (thrown, pushed, whatever) I noticed that one of the sweepers was running alongside and looking a some (stopwatch, pedometer) type device they had hanging on their belt. What is that all about?

Here's where it gets confusing, so bear with me. They're timing how long it takes to travel from one hog line to the one at the other end of the ice. You'll hear the commentators refer to "fast ice" or "slow ice". The longer the time measured , the faster the ice is.That seems backwards, but it means it's slipperier (new word) and the stone will travel at a slow rate and still make the other end. The competitors talk to each other in terms of how fast or slow the ice is in seconds. That info will dictate how hard they throw the rocks. Some people will rate the speed on a 1-10 scale and just use a number. The other thing you'll hear them tell the shooter is T-line weight, button weight, hack weight or take-out weight. These are all terms that the shooter uses to judge the weight of his/her throw. The rock weighs 42 lb. IIRC.

Women's curling seems highly MILF-based.

I approve.

jg

JG Pasterjak wrote: Women's curling seems highly MILF-based. I approve. jg

Yes, and yes.

BTW - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL9mlqbG5CU

I kid you not, the local college is advertising a Curling School this weekend and my 10-year old is begging to go.

I love the old Simpsons episode where Bart and Milhouse are in Canada and they are fighting over a girl and wind up blasting through a Curling match. There was nobody in the audience (maybe one or two people) and the announcer said, in a thick Canadian accent "wow, that must have gotten both of our viewers fired up!"

Oddly enough, there was another episode on Sunday where Marge and Homer became Olympic curlers. It was the best episode in a while and it really made the sport look like fun.

Did anybody see How It's Made when they showed how the stones are made? It was pretty cool--a lot of attention to detail and a lot of effort go into making them perfect.

JG Pasterjak wrote: Women's curling seems highly MILF-based. I approve. jg

this isn't very safe for work- may need to turn down the volume

In normal speed http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeCErjj8UTQ&feature=player_embedded

In super slow mo- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yis2yjfeuZU&feature=player_embedded

Sadly, I have to admit that I virtually know the guys who did this- part of my college hockey loving alter ego...

e

yay boobies!

in a thick Canadian accent

What is this accent of which you speak?

So, in how many of the other women's Olympic sports do you think they wear makeup?

Hey, I saw that shot! I missed the boobalege though, too focused on a riveting game I guess.

Dan

haha, there is a site that ranked the hottest female curlers...

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/349951-rock-the-house-the-hotties-of-olympic-curling?show_full=true

DeadSkunk wrote: And, one more reason to try the game,,,,, you normally can drink on the ice! What other sport (besides golf) let's you do that.

Don't forget cat juggling. Although I wouldn't recommend drinking if you take it to the next level-Greased cat juggling. Boy can it get ugly.