What the hell is “Curling” anyway?

Someone recently told me about “Curling” and why they thought it was a strange and slightly amusing Olympic sport. My thoughts were: lifting weights can’t be that strange as an Olympic sport. I soon came to realize that “Curling” was not lifting weights. As I surfed past NBC’s coverage of the XX Olympic Games today, I happened upon “Curling.” The word strange cannot begin to describe this “sport.”

From what I observed, “curling” consists of a team of three people. The game takes place on an area of ice. It almost looks like a shuffleboard court. One team member takes this “rock” (which looks like a slightly smooshed snowball cookie with a handle on the top) kneels down and pushes off in a lunging kneel and slides across the ice and lets go of this “rock.” They all appear to be wearing sneakers. The “pusher” wears a black sneaker and a white sneaker (much like a Ked). The remaining two team members are each holding something that looks like a Swiffer. They wait until the “rock” is launched and furiously “swiff” directly in front of the sliding “rock” without touching it. I think they are trying to “curl” the “rock” to take a certain course. The “rock’s” final destination should be inside of this target like thing at the end of the ice.

I do not understand why this is an Olympic sport. Apparently, this sport has been around since 1867. The hotbed of “Curling” activity at the time was surprisingly, New York City. Today, there is a curling club about 12 miles from Yankee Stadium. It is extremely strange to watch and from an aerial view at the Olympic Games, it looks a bowling alley with people holding brooms.

In watching this for a little while, I have come to the realization that this is probably the only Olympic sport that I could actually accomplish.