I am not an athlete; I am a spectator.
Hey, at least I know my place; probably because it was reaffirmed by my classmates in phys. ed. from kindergarten to high school. Emotional scars run deep, people. So why then, did I accept a dare to not only play a sport I have never played before, but to play it during a tournament? I have no idea.
Suffice it to say that curling is a whole lot harder than it looks on television. I admit I approached that sport with an arrogance that allowed me to believe if children and senior citizens could throw a rock, then really, how hard could it be? Then I stepped onto the ice.
Perhaps “stepped onto the ice” is a bit misleading. I looked more like Bambi when he follows his pals onto the ice only to discover it is ice and his four legs sprawl out beneath him. My right foot barely landed when my left shoe, cruelly slapped with something called a slider, joined in and my centre of gravity disappeared, while I flailed about with nothing but a ridiculously smooth-bottomed broom to help me. At best, the broom would clear the path for my very painful landing, that is, if it didn’t impale me first.
My teacher, who also happened to be my mother, reassured me this was a simple sport (sort of like how she promised I’d forget the pain of child birth). With the broom tucked under my left arm and a curling rock in front of me, she showed me how to take my stance in the hack.
Who was she kidding? “You want me to do what?” I looked like a chicken wing. On my first try out of the hack, I toppled over. I dropped the broom, bruised my shin and smacked my wrist. The words, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up,” came to mind.
That’s when I was informed that if I dropped my broom again, everyone in the rink would drop their brooms too. Great. Public heckling is allowed. High school all over again.
That’s when an 80-year-old gentleman launched himself from the hack next to mine and whizzed by me, perfectly low to the ground, back leg distended like he did the splits every morning, broom tight to his side – as if being a chicken wing was totally natural.
This man had the dexterity of a cat. He slid past the first red line, let go of the rock like it weighed one ounce, and sent that stone all the way to the button and beyond.
Then he stood straight up, like it was nothing to get down on the ice and even less effort to get back up. I rolled over and wondered if OHIP covered hip replacements.
But I stuck it out.
Turns out it is quite gratifying to push a curling rock, sending that sucker flying all the way to the button or, in my case, at least almost to the first red line (ignoring the fact that the second, farther red line was the actual goal). Making someone sweep the path for your stone is an even greater pleasure. You have to love a sport where someone else has to sweep up your mess.
I might be a hack, but I had a hack of a good time trying. Ouch. Excuse the pun. I will never mock curling again. This is not a sport for the fragile.
Now, can somebody help me up? Hurry, hard.