SOCHI, RUSSIA - Curling, the shuffleboard-like game on ice that is so popular in Canada and Scotland, may be the most perplexing Olympic sport to American viewers. For one thing, it is televised in the early morning hours when most Americans are asleep. Who ever heard of setting your alarm clock, getting up early, and losing valuable sleep to watch curling?
Then there are the confusing kinds of activities involved in curling. The curlers slide stones, made of granite, slowly toward a sort of dart board called a house that has a bulls-eye called a button. On the way to the house they do a lot of sweeping with brooms while yelling at the top of their lungs.
It sort of makes an American wonder if curling originated with bored, argumentative fishwives who were waiting for their husbands to return from sea during the long icy winter months?
Actually, when you look it up on the internet, curling was first played in medieval times by Scottish weavers, who obviously had nothing better to do with their spare time, money being rather short and recreational activities being rather limited.
Ever since curling was included in the Winter Olympics in 1998, Americans have tried to watch it, just in case they might be missing something exciting, the way downhill skiing and the luge are.
Once they quickly figured out curling wasn't exciting, Americans sort of lost interest, being part of a culture that places extreme value on speed, athleticism, and risk - none of which appear to be part of the sport of curling.
In case you didn't know, the last time curling was a part of the Winter Olympics was in 1924. With a 74 year hiatus between Olympics, it can only be assumed curlers were busy training future generations of curlers, who were sharpening their curling skills in hopes of being asked to return to the Olympic line-up.
Somehow, it is doubtful Americans even noticed or cared that curling was missing for those 74 years, let alone noticing it when it finally did show up again.