By STEVE OUELLETTE, You Had to Ask
I am not ashamed to admit that I love the Winter Olympics.
It's always fun to watch the winter sports — the ones rarely seen on TV but forever entwined in the fabric of the Adirondack region. There's also the unavoidable sense of national pride that overtakes me as I root on the athletes who are representing our great nation with dignity, grace and honor (with the exception of the occasional snowboarder).
There have been two weeks filled with many thrills of victory and much agony of defeat — almost all of it claiming my rapt attention.
Not that the Winter Games are perfect, of course.
I lament the fact that — other than the cool activities heisted from the X Games — not enough of the events feature the competitors going head-to-head against each other at the same time. Too many timed runs and judges' decisions. How spectacular would it be to see 68 ski jumpers taking off at the same time?
I get frustrated that the United States doesn't win every gold medal. Finland, Slovakia and Norway shouldn't beat us in anything. Says so right in the "¦ Magna Carta or the North American Free Trade Agreement or something.
Personally, I don't care for the figure skating, and I think the ice dancing is just plain silly. I understand the appeal, however. They can stay.
I wish that more of the traditional indoor sports would be swapped from the overloaded Summer Olympics to the Winter Games — basketball, volleyball, team handball, arena football.
These are all minor quibbles, none of which affect my ability to enjoy the Games. Only one event has really turned my stomach over the past fortnight.
I'm looking at you, curling.
Nearly every afternoon when I turn on the Olympics in the background while I work, curling is the sport that NBC has chosen to show me. It fills something like 80 percent of the network programming.
I understand the strategy — curling matches take forever, and the endless round-robin preliminary round lasts slightly longer than eternity. That makes it readily available at any hour. I'm also sure that the network felt people would get a kick out of a sport that the average middle-aged man could — with a tiny bit of practice — compete in at the Olympic level.
That might have been true, if only Americans weren't genetically created to be terrible at curling.
Every day, I would tune in. Every day, it would be curling. Every day, the American team would play as if it was wondering the same thing the American viewing public was wondering — why exactly are we throwing these giant rocks with handles on them? Why are we on ice when we could be having a nice game of bocce instead? And what's with all that sweeping?
It didn't help that I became convinced that the skip of the U.S. men's team — who for some unexplainable reason does not wear a yachting skipper's hat — was throwing matches, or at least shaving points.
I'll watch almost anything if the Americans have a chance to win, but since that obviously isn't going to happen, the sport is going to have to make some changes if it wants me to pay attention again in four years.
Any respectable promoter will tell you that the typical first step should be to sex it up a little. Some of the curlers are quite attractive in their own way — I've already ordered the Russian Curlers Swimsuit Calendar — and ratings would go through the roof if organizers would just outfit them in spiked boots, miniskirts and bustiers. Tastefully done, of course.
For the women who cry sexism at this approach, well, we can also put the male curlers in some sort of Tarzan thong, if that's really, really what you want. Please consider this carefully.
As for the game itself, there are obviously many areas that could be improved. Speed up the play; no more talking and kvetching about every throw. Now, there's a 24-second rock clock.
Give the sweepers a variety of more modern appliances to work with as they try to subtly affect the stone: a hair dryer, shop vac, rototiller, glue gun, flamethrower.
Borrowing from video games, how about we give those big, boring stones a variety of random power-ups? Some of them will contain powerful magnets. Others will explode on impact or divide into three smaller stones or turn into a sticky radioactive goo or give its thrower the power of invisibility.
My favorite suggestion, however, is this: biathurling. Strap a rifle on to each curler and let's just see what happens.
E-mail Steve Ouellette at: ouellette1918@gmail.com
