<p class="p1">After finally getting around to  half-watching the Winter Olympics this week, I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s nothing wrong with our fair city that a good, honest curling rink wouldn’t solve.</p><p class="p1">Yes, you can count me among the millions of converts to this excitingly numbing new sport, one that is verily sweeping up the masses.</p><p class="p1">I am positively hypnotized, can’t get enough of it, occasionally even mesmerized, even though it appears our American breathren are somewhat challenged at it.</p><p class="p1"> We need to change that with a groundswell movement. There must be some ice around here left over from our town’s hockey experiment or, if it doesn’t warm up soon, we can play it on Prien Lake,</p><p class="p1">This can be our sport.</p><p class="p1">Quick, like before global warming kicks in.</p><p class="p1">We need a sport for the kids which can last them a lifetime, which is to say, an Olympic-quality activity played for beers that can be easily performed with a cigarette dangling from your mouth and quarters lined up for the next game.</p><p class="p1">At any rate, I have been studying up on my new favorite sport for the better part of the last 15 minutes (well, Googling, at least), so I’m here to answer the many questions you probably have.</p><p class="p1"><strong>Q:</strong> Is it really a sport?</p><p class="p1"><strong>A</strong>: Oh, there you go again, probably one of those highbrow traditionalists who thinks darts isn’t a sport and pool sharks aren’t athletes.</p><p class="p1">Of course it’s a sport. It’s on TV isn’t it?</p><p class="p1"><strong>Q</strong>: When did curling originate?</p><p class="p1"><strong>A</strong>: It actually was invented in 1998 for a reality television show. No, no, wait. I remember it way back, popping up occasionally on the old Wide World of Sports show when they still used those Wicked-Witch-of-the-West brooms. The year 1998 was probably when it became an Olympic sport. It’s roots go back quite a bit further, maybe as far back as 1511, which is the oldest inscription ever found on anything related to the sport. It was over in Scotland or somewhere ancient. But Canada, which is always looking for innovative ways to use its chronic surplus of ice, is pretty much the epicenter these days.</p><p class="p1"><strong>Q</strong>: How did the sport start?</p><p class="p1"><strong>A</strong>: Alcohol is suspected.</p><p class="p1"><strong>Q:</strong> Is it hard?</p><p class="p1"><strong>A</strong>: No.</p><p class="p1"><strong>Q</strong>: What do you need to play?</p><p class="p1"><strong>A</strong>: About 50 yards of ice (15 feet wide), a couple of brooms and, of course, the all-important “stone” which is more commonly referred to as a “rock.”</p><p class="p1">Also, four players to a side, who take turns sliding the “stone” or, if he/she prefers, “rock.”</p><p class="p1"><strong>Q</strong>: What kind of cash we talking about?</p><p class="p1"><strong>A</strong>: It’s not cheap. The high-end “rocks” we’re watching in the Olympics can run you $1,500 or better, maybe more for the monogrammed models.  That’s prized and  mostly polished granite we’re talking about, all of it coming from a single quarry on an island off the Ayrshire coast, which, as we all know, is in Scotland. Or maybe Finland. I forget. But this need be no hindrance. The literature says budget-conscious (cheap) curlers often whip one up out of common concrete and, best I can tell, a frozen ham or pork roast would work just as well.</p><p class="p1"><strong>Q</strong>: OK, give us the rules.</p><p class="p1"><strong>A</strong>: You play 10 ends. Apparently they misspelled innings, because it’s like an inning in baseball. They alternate sliding that rock down toward that bullseye (except they call it a button). Every end each team throws eight of them and, in layman’s terms, if you’re closest to the “button” you get a point, plus another  point for any “stones” that are closer than your opponent’s closest.</p><p class="p1"><strong>Q</strong>: Is there strategy?</p><p class="p1"><strong>A</strong>: Probably.</p><p class="p1"><strong>Q</strong>: Sounds simple.</p><p class="p1"><strong>A</strong>: Yeah, but, in fact, the curling rule book is thicker than the U.S. tax code. I’d give you details but it would only make your head hurt.</p><p class="p1">Actually, curling is very much a “gentleman’s game” where you’re expected to call fouls on yourself.</p><p class="p1"><strong>Q</strong>: Like golf?</p><p class="p1"><strong>A</strong>: Yeah. In other words, if you think your opponent cheated, it is customary that you hit him over the head with the 44-pound “stone” of your choice.</p><p class="p1"><strong>Q</strong>: I was wondering what would happen if one of the sweepers accidentally or on purpose knocked one of the rocks away or touched the one he/she was sweeping.</p><p class="p1"><strong>A</strong>: Me too. And it’s not pretty. Just pray it doesn’t happen in the Olympics because 99.8 percent of that four-foot thick rule book is devoted to the variations, options and implications of it. Trust me, it will take them six months to sort it out.</p><p class="p1"><strong>Q</strong>: What happens if it’s tied after 10 ends.</p><p class="p1"><strong>A</strong>: They go to extra endings (sorry, couldn’t resist).</p><p class="p1"><strong>Q</strong>: What do the sweepers actually do and what effect does it have on the rock.</p><p class="p1"><strong>A</strong>: The honest answer is that they do absolutely nothing, nada. Do not listen to the TV commentators drone on about how critical sweeping is to the “weight” (speed) or “turn” (rotation) or “line” (direction) of the “slide” (throw). We are all way more  smarter than to fall for that.</p><p class="p1">The problem is, there are four members to a team and only one can “slide” it at a time. So as to not make all of the others feel left out, two of them have been sold on the idea that their silly sweeping has some effect. Something that sounds like chemistry about how friction slicks up the ice and makes the “stone” rotate faster. Or maybe it’s slower, I forget and I lost the Google bookmark on it.</p><p class="p1">But it’s an old wive’s tale, generally dismissed by modern experts, like me.</p><p class="p1"><strong>Q</strong>: Why does the thrower carry a broom even though he/she does no sweeping.</p><p class="p1"><strong>A</strong>: For balance, they say, which can come in handy if you’ve already won a few beers.</p><p class="p1"><strong>Q</strong>: So what does the fourth team member do?</p><p class="p1"><strong>A</strong>: He makes sure they’ve got enough quarters for the next game.</p><p class="p1"><strong>Q</strong>: So what’s to stop you from winding up like a bowler and letting that baby fly and scattering the stones like the break in a pool game.</p><p class="p1"><strong>A</strong>: That’s the best part. I’ve found nothing in the rules that prohibit this. And somebody really needs to try it, hopefully tonight on TV. </p>