The "Olympic" Sport of Curling

While watching the Hammer Throw finals at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, I never imagined my sports spectating standards could sink any lower . . . until I caught this week's comedic competition called Curling at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

Maybe - just maybe - somebody could cajole me into believing that flinging a chain linked projectile resembling some medieval instrument of torture by a big burly boy named Boris from Belarus actually constitutes an Olympic sport.

But, I'm sorry, nobody is ever going to convince me that the skinny Norwegian glee club members clad in those ridiculous red, blue and white harlequin pants, and swooshing plastic kitchen brooms across an ice skating rink, are genuine Olympians!

Who on planet Earth, other than their mothers, would ever consider these swashbuckling, Broadway wannabes . . . Olympians?

Just how inebriated were IOC members when they sanctioned Curling as an Olympic sport? If Curling is an official Winter Olympic sport, could ice fishing, snowman building and snow angel making be very far behind? Word has it on the slushy, just-about-snowless British Columbian hills that, after watching this week's Curling competition on NBC, beer pongers and frisbee golfers are now petitioning the IOC for their sport's inclusion in the 2012 London Summer Olympics.

Is it just me or do you also view Curling as scandalously skirting the sanctity of sports by not requiring even the slightest semblance of athleticism?

Let's be honest. Have you ever heard anybody say, "I'm playing in a real competitive inner-city Curling league this season." Or, "Who will you pick as your Sweeper in next season's Fantasy Curling League?" Or, worse yet, "Let's run on over to Dick's Sporting Goods. I hear they just stocked their shelves with the latest Curling gear - and their Curling Broom assortment is awesome!"

Listen, as far as I'm concerned, any sport that rhymes with twirling can't be any good at all. So, enough of this nonsense! All this talk of Curling makes me think about hurling . . . my lunch.

Straight Talk. No Static.

MIKE - Thee American Made Voice on Sports!