Prompted by an Instapundit link to a THE BEST SPORTS CALENDAR EVER!!!!!!
… I now present “The Invention of Curling”
Scene: Scotland circa a long time ago.
Duncan: “Och, Angus tis winter! There’s nay work, nay hunt’en and nay fight’en. We’re bored.
Angus: “Oh, aye, we’re bored.”
Duncan: “We’ve got naught to amuse our persons with save a frozen pond, some smooth river boulders and our wimmen’s brooms.”
Angus: “Oh, aye, and we’re drunk.”
Duncan: “And we’re drunk.”
End scene.
Yes, like all winter sports, curling began as a drunken bet. (Come on, you can’t tell me that the luge, ski jumping or ice dancing were invented by sober, thoughtful people!)
Yet, now there is something relentlessly bourgeois about curling (and it’s not just because the players wear polyester slacks and sensible shoes). Curling is a sport of thought and patience. It is the sport of moderation. It’s the sport for people who get up in the morning, every morning and quietly go forth to make the world work.
I find it endlessly fascinating and I can watch it for hours. I was born in the wrong clime for I should have been a curler. I tried Texas style curling by shoving armadillos across the hot asphalt at discarded tires…
… but it’s not the same.
Maybe its not the same because you didn’t have quite enough to drink before you sent the armadillos on their journey.
Don’t give upo so easily – sounds like it has Olympic potential to me
Apparently this game has rules. That takes all the fun out of it! http://bit.ly/9bp4jH
“Yes, like all winter sports, curling began as a drunken bet.”
Ha! Very likely true….
– Madhu
You can always take up bowling.
While not at all deprecating the necessity of drunkenness, I think it more likely the combination of excess winter, deficit flat ground, and someone, sometime, having seen a game of bowls.
John Burgess,
I think it more likely the combination of excess winter, deficit flat ground, and someone, sometime, having seen a game of bowls.
How do you know that bowling wasn’t inspired by curling? After all smooth rocks and ice must have been more common than highly labor intensive, hand made, smooth round wooden spheres.
There is another component you omitted – cleanliness. The sight of them rubbing the ice frantically with their…er…brooms make me think Scotland must be impeccably spotless country. Especially their icy ponds, polished to perfection.