Sweeping ice and passing stones

    For my money, the Winter Olympics are better than summer as I'd rather watch hockey, speed skating, snowboarding, luge, bobsledding, and not so much figure skating or ice dancing. I didn't forget skeleton, I just don't know what it is.

     OK, two figure skaters I would sit down and pay to watch are Chazz Michael Michaels and Jimmy Macelroy. You could say those two had "Blades of Glory" in their pairs performance during the 2007 World Winter Sport Games in Montreal.

     But there is still one event I look forward to more than any other in either Olympics, and that is ... the great sport of curling!

     Curling, you ask?

     Yep, I said curling!

     For some odd reason, this sport grabs my attention every four years, kind of like swimming or speed walking does in the summer games, but curling is so much more entertaining.

     (Have you ever watched speed walking? They kinda walk like Gumby, but not exactly. I bet Gumby would be a gold medalist if Gumby was able to enter the event. All right, I just like typing the word "Gumby.")

     To start curling, each team is compiled of four players, two of whom get to carry brooms and one who passes the stone (ouch!) down the ice, while the other member directs the broom carries, or in professional curling speak, sweepers, in the direction of the target or the home. So, the job of the sweeper is to make sure the stone gets home, closer than their opponent.

     Yes, the broom handlers are called sweepers, and they get to wear special ice-gripping shoes.

     OK, with the basics explained, did you know the sport goes back to the 16th century, with Scotland, the Netherlands and Belgium taking credit as the first place where the game started? (I'd go with Scotland for the simple fact that Groundskeeper Willie from "The Simpsons" is from there.)

     Baseball is famous for having poetry written about how great that game can be, but long before baseball was invented, poets were professing their love for the game of curling or "Chess on Ice." In 1773, James Greene described a curling event for the first time, but it has been four years since I had to try to understand poetry and I am not gonna start back now. Sorry, I will just not do it. OK, I read the poem, and well, there could have been a much easier way to record the first account of curling.

     After the fiasco of reading about curling from a poet, don't think the sports of curling is cheap. Each stone costs $400 and the sweepers must wear special ice shoes. Plus, don't forget the special brooms that have to be used. The straw brooms used by the The Wicked Witch of the West won't get the job done when it come to curling.

     Quick, my two favorite curling names: Eddie "The Wrench" Werenich and Schmirler "The Curler." (According to reports on Yahoo.com, Homer Simpson is chasing his dream of becoming a curler this week on "The Simpsons.")

     This Olympics on the men's side, Sports Illustrated predicts Great Britain to take the gold, followed by Canada with silver and Norway with the bronze. In women's curling, the predictions are Canada, China and Denmark. By the way, this will be the debut for China in curling. Their coach is from Canada, where millions of people play the sport. Who cares about the free health care and bacon in Canada when you can basically curl whenever you want?

     So with the Olympics starting Feb. 12, I will stay awake morning, noon and night to get my four-year fix of this great sport. So the next time you are watching and an Olympian is passing a stone on the ice (still painful), please sit down, cheer, and watch the rest of the team sweep the stone away.