Feeling of uncurling patriotism

Published 6:57 pm Sunday, February 25, 2018

<p class="p1">It’s 12:30 — in the morning — and I know exactly where I am.</p><p class="p1">My patriotic butt is parked on the couch, ready to watch America get great again.</p><p class="p1">Via curling.</p><p class="p1">So bear with me. Follow along. The gold-medal match will be starting here any minute now. The USA has never won gold in curling, and that’s a shame. The last two Olympics, in fact, our guys finished next to last and buck-nekkid last.</p><p class="p1">So right now I’m trying to get mad at Sweden, which isn’t easy. What did Sweden ever do to anybody? Nothing that I know of. It’s one of those countries that never quite thaws out.</p><p class="p1">But never mind. Right now the Swedes are the enemy, standing between the good ol’ USA and one of the great gold-medal upsets in the history of curling, maybe the entire Olympics.</p><p class="p1">It’s starting now.</p><p class="p1">OK, no score after one end (that’s like an inning in baseball; there’s 10 of them). It seems hard for neither team to score, but apparently it happens regularly.</p><p class="p1">Not in this second end. The USA missed a chance to break even again and the dastardly Swedes landed a two-spot, two points, 2-0 bad guys.</p><p class="p1">Curling is the bee’s knees, but for some reason the entire Winter Olympics are a lot more fun to watch than the Summer Games. Even the sillier events. A lot less sweating, for one thing.</p><p class="p1">Ah, yes, here we go. The USA has “the hammer” here — which I think means they get to throw the rock last — and John Shuster just cold-cocked two Swedish stones out of the “house” to leave the good guys with a two-spot.</p><p class="p1">Game on, 2-2.</p><p class="p1">It sounds incredibly cool to be able to say you “have the hammer.”</p><p class="p1">To be honest, I wouldn’t pick any of these guys out of a police lineup as Olympians.</p><p class="p1">The Swedish team looks like a pretty boy and three clean-cut hipsters.</p><p class="p1">This USA team looks like, well, it looks like maybe an accountant, a hardware salesman and two Jakes from State Farm.</p><p class="p1">But on we go to the fourth end, which is too close to call. Really. They have to bring out a judge, with some measuring device like that compass that used to be your favorite thing to get in school supplies because you could carve your initials into your desk with the pointed end.</p><p class="p1">The USA gets the measured point — and is that the first time in Olympic history that America got a break from a judge?</p><p class="p1">The two teams have dressed the part.</p><p class="p1">The Swedes look all sleeked up for one of those swashbuckling events like the big-mountain, head-over-teacup downhill.</p><p class="p1">Our American Nerds look ready for Thursday night bowling. They would be comfortable with pocket protectors.</p><p class="p1">But it’s part of their charm.</p><p class="p1">Fifth end, now, and the Americans can’t stand prosperity. The Swedes get two points.</p><p class="p1">I’m not sure why NBC bothered to mike up the curlers for sound.</p><p class="p1">The Swedes speak, uh, Swedish, I guess, and the Americans speak Duluth.</p><p class="p1">I can’t understand a word either team says … or yells.</p><p class="p1">Whenever the Swedes start yelling, it sounds like, “Aye! Why! Yai! Sai! Fai! Lai! Sqwai” Evidently there’s not a two-syllable word in the entire language.</p><p class="p1">When the Americans are screaming at the rock, it sound like “Asha! Washa! Kusha! Suba! Dumpha!”</p><p class="p1">Ivanka Trump, the First Daughter, is there. Not to be outdone, Sweden sent its king. Didn’t know Sweden had a king, but King Carl XVI Gustaf is right there, looking fairly royal.</p><p class="p1">Not much happening on the scoreboard as we get through a few more ends.</p><p class="p1">I wonder if it bothers our USA curling heros that most Americans are sitting back home thinking that if only they spent a month or two practicing this sport then they, too, could be Olympians.</p><p class="p1">We’re probably all wrong.</p><p class="p1">It’s probably harder than it looks.</p><p class="p1">But nobody sits back home and watches the Finns jump off the side of mountain tops and says, “Yeah, I could do that.”</p><p class="p1">Seventh ending stretch now (I made that up; cute, huh?). But not much happening.</p><p class="p1">Whatever language they’re using, I’m starting to think that screaming and hollering at the “rock” has a lot more effect on where it ends up than all that silly sweeping.</p><p class="p1">I also think that, aesthetically, the sport would benefit if they used honest straw brooms instead of those high-tech Swiffer things. Also, for all the free time they spend sweeping, wonder how much they help out when it comes to tidying up around the home place.</p><p class="p1">Eighth end now, and you can feel the tension building in a 5-5 match.</p><p class="p1">The USA’s body language seems to be good, something beyond my comprehension is brewing and … omigosh, ladies and gentlemen, there it is — the greatest single shot-slide-throw-whatever-they-call-it in curling history.</p><p class="p1">Shuster had the hammer and slid one down in there tight for a double-knock out of two Swede stones, kissing off them perfectly to leave five USA stones in the house in scoring position — yes, a five-spot, and it’s 10-5.</p><p class="p1">USA! USA! USA!</p><p class="p1">That’s the throw that’s going to have a curling rink show up on every street corner in America.</p><p class="p1">This is like winning The Masters with a hole-in-one.</p><p class="p1">There are two ends left, but one look at the Swedes tells you it’s over.</p><p class="p1">They went through the motions in end nine, but now a couple of throw into end 10 they concede.</p><p class="p1">The Swedes seem like nice young men, to be honest.</p><p class="p1">But I’ve never been more proud to be an American.</p><p class="p2"> </p><p class="p3"><strong>Scooter Hobbs</strong> covers LSU athletics. Email him at</p><p class="p3">shobbs@americanpress.com</p>