Same Difference

The two homes I was watching last week were equipped with competing satellite services for their televisions. One had DirecTV, the other the Dish Network, and while they are as different as Daisani and Crystal Geyser waters, I was able to render them both unworkable.

All it takes, see, is accidentally pushing the wrong button and being unaware of both what you've done and how to fix it.

Still, I was able to view some of the Olympics, and I'm now more conversant with curling than I was before. My parents were raised in Northern Minnesota and most of our family still lives there. I don't know if my parents ever curled, but one aunt did and was rabid in her devotion.

Curling, I'm afraid to say, is a great deal more technical than it needs to be. This is true of most everything, and I credit our age of specialization for that. Now that we have so much knowledge, it's possible to drown in any subject. Not only are our lives influenced by what we consider important, it becomes our reality. There's no such thing as a hypochondriac who doesn't follow medical breakthroughs.

Anyway, one of the commentators likened curling to "chess on ice," which pretty much accounts for the thrilling spectacle. What struck me, first, was that the sport (?) is played pretty much by younger people. There's a few people in their fifties, but nearly everyone looks to be no older than thirty-five. Sure, the rocks are heavy (about forty-two pounds), but I don't think that explains it.

The second, and more disturbing, feature is that in spite of the sport's name, the rocks don't really curl very much. You slide this heavy rock down ninety feet of ice and at the end it curls a bit because of the rotation, but it's nothing dramatic. They make a big deal out of blocking rocks, of starting off the rock with the correct amount of weight (speed), but it's pretty much just what you'd think: Sliding rocks toward a target.

No, I wouldn't be as accurate as these Olympians are, but I'm firmly convinced that this is more a pastime than a sport. That's true of billiards and bowling, too, and the rule of thumb is anything you can participate in while enjoying beer and cigarettes isn't, really, a sport.

They make a lot of strategic decisions, few of which seem to have any noticeable effect on the play. This may be where the specialization comes in, since I think people have studied and played this game for years and years. I'd really like to see how some team inexperienced with the evolved knowledge of how to play, but as skillful in rock placing, would do against these acknowledged "experts."

I just wonder how they'd fare if, instead of "having" to take out the guarding rocks, someone just went ahead and tried to score points and play the game as simply as it started.

The Winter Olympics are full of things that I don't consider sport, but I watch 'em, anyway.