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Curling: The Most Ridiculous Sport? · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
0:30
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Let's give an extra special
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Speaker 1: couple of hands to our one and only super producer,
0:37
Speaker 1: Mr Max Williams, who hold the phone also ran research
0:47
Speaker 1: on today's episode running Point. Thanks for wearing a couple
0:51
Speaker 1: of different hats today, Max, did you hear my one
0:53
Speaker 1: handed clap? Max? I did, and I saw it. I
0:56
Speaker 1: very much appreciate it. I know no one else can
0:58
Speaker 1: see it, but I saw it, and I appairly appreciate.
1:00
Speaker 1: What does running interference mean? Is that a good thing
1:02
Speaker 1: or a bad thing? Running interference is a good thing
1:06
Speaker 1: if it's someone on your team. If it's someone on
1:10
Speaker 1: the other team, then they're they're interfering with you, trying
1:14
Speaker 1: to get I'm wondering. I don't know. We'll get into
1:17
Speaker 1: its day. But it's just like curling seems to be
1:20
Speaker 1: largely like it's like the team versus the ice and
1:24
Speaker 1: the stones. There's not really much interference running, is there. Well,
1:28
Speaker 1: we're about to find out. They called me Ben, You're no.
1:33
Speaker 1: Let's let me tell you one thing about Max Williams.
1:36
Speaker 1: I was saying this off air about the guy earlier.
1:38
Speaker 1: He loves four things. I think we did the list right, Uh, model, trains, curling, sports,
1:46
Speaker 1: and star trek. Right, that was the list we came
1:49
Speaker 1: up with. These are the only things that Max legs,
1:52
Speaker 1: the only things. Honestly, the only thing is a pretty
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Speaker 1: big VENN diagram though the piece of the it's like,
2:00
Speaker 1: you know, I really like that you guys have curling
2:02
Speaker 1: and sports separate and not a sport. Currently you're telling me,
2:08
Speaker 1: are you serious? Well, no, you know, after today's episode,
2:11
Speaker 1: I think you might have a little bit of a
2:13
Speaker 1: different opinion about that. Let's sets. But it wasn't adopted
2:19
Speaker 1: in the Olympics until nineteen, which I was not aware of.
2:22
Speaker 1: It's it's a relatively recent edition and has picked up
2:25
Speaker 1: a lot of steam, I think largely because it's so
2:28
Speaker 1: incomprehensible to the casual observer. Yeah, it's kind of like
2:32
Speaker 1: it's I would put curling there with cricket. It's one
2:35
Speaker 1: of those It's one of those sports that you can
2:38
Speaker 1: watch and not understand unless you are aware of the rules.
2:43
Speaker 1: Otherwise a lot of the movements and strategies may not
2:46
Speaker 1: make a ton of sense. So with being a curling
2:51
Speaker 1: new beat myself. We're grateful for the chance to learn
2:54
Speaker 1: here and dive into some of the ridiculous history. They
2:59
Speaker 1: said it surre hounding this sport, and Max you had
3:02
Speaker 1: opened up with a great point about the Winter Olympics,
3:05
Speaker 1: where he said, yes, they have some pretty ridiculous sports,
3:09
Speaker 1: including stuff in the past like ski during which is
3:14
Speaker 1: you describe it as water skiing on snow with a
3:17
Speaker 1: horse instead of a boat. And then uh, you got
3:21
Speaker 1: a couple of others here as well. Give it to Max.
3:24
Speaker 1: These are these are your fines. I was not aware
3:27
Speaker 1: of a single one of these, except maybe the skiing
3:30
Speaker 1: one with the gun, but I think I may have
3:31
Speaker 1: just seen that in the James Bond movie and sort
3:33
Speaker 1: of like, uh, corelated those two things into one. But
3:37
Speaker 1: I don't think they're related. I mean, I gotta, I
3:39
Speaker 1: gotta mid like when it came through scioraging and bandy.
3:42
Speaker 1: I had never heard of these either. But there's like banding,
3:45
Speaker 1: which is like weird. It's described as a weird hybrid
3:49
Speaker 1: of hockey and soccer on ice, so it's like it's
3:53
Speaker 1: not it's like field hockey on eyes. That's what I
3:55
Speaker 1: heard people say which it brings up the questions like
3:57
Speaker 1: when field hockey on ice just bet ice hockey, but
4:01
Speaker 1: I don't know that's what it was now. But the
4:03
Speaker 1: weird one I found it was ski ballet. It's like
4:05
Speaker 1: ballet while you're on skis, like you're like putting your
4:08
Speaker 1: pole in the ground doing flips and stuff. I don't know,
4:10
Speaker 1: it's really weird. Is it synchronized like swimming or is
4:13
Speaker 1: it more a lone wolf thing. I think it's the
4:16
Speaker 1: lone wolf thing. I think it lasted to the nineties.
4:19
Speaker 1: I think it was in the Olympics in the nineties,
4:21
Speaker 1: but it's not around anymore. But you know, we still
4:22
Speaker 1: have biathlete and with personal favorite of mine, where you're
4:25
Speaker 1: literally skiing across the country and then you stopped to
4:28
Speaker 1: just shoot things like what like targets or squirrels or like,
4:32
Speaker 1: you know, snow I mean, I think snow men would
4:35
Speaker 1: be cool, but you know, I said, I said snow
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Speaker 1: birds now, but snow men would probably be less gory.
4:40
Speaker 1: But yeah, I like that idea, a little snow men
4:43
Speaker 1: kind of posing as like Nazi or something like that.
4:45
Speaker 1: That's where again I'm James bonding, and again I'm trying
4:47
Speaker 1: to bonding in again. We also did a pretty great
4:50
Speaker 1: episode about uh skiing attacks. Remember that heist. Yeah, so
4:56
Speaker 1: I think that's where our minds are going. I'm cornslating
5:00
Speaker 1: several things right now. Oh that's I mean, that's great.
5:02
Speaker 1: That's that's the that's the result of our beautiful minds
5:06
Speaker 1: at play a long time ridiculous historians. You've probably heard
5:10
Speaker 1: ever since Max joined us to class up the show
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Speaker 1: occasional references to his his love of and fascination with curling.
5:21
Speaker 1: To give you the long and short of this, there
5:24
Speaker 1: are two teams in every game. Each team has four players.
5:28
Speaker 1: They take turns throwing rocks down a long, thin sheet
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Speaker 1: of ice, and then other people on their teams take
5:36
Speaker 1: these broom ish tools and they start sweeping the ice. Matt,
5:42
Speaker 1: you also note there is a lot of yelling in curling,
5:47
Speaker 1: and you've been on record saying sometimes you think it
5:50
Speaker 1: it doesn't get the respect it deserves. So today we're
5:54
Speaker 1: going to correct that. But I think maybe Noll, first
5:57
Speaker 1: we gotta talk about some of the some of the rules.
6:00
Speaker 1: I had no idea how this stuff worked until honestly,
6:03
Speaker 1: until I started hanging out with Max, totally no I'
6:06
Speaker 1: mean either um, and again, because it's one of these
6:08
Speaker 1: things where you know baseball, you can kind of get
6:12
Speaker 1: it watching it for a little while with a little
6:15
Speaker 1: bit of background knowledge. Football maybe a little less. So
6:18
Speaker 1: I still don't understand quite how football wars. What is
6:20
Speaker 1: it down? I don't even know. Somebody rights and let
6:23
Speaker 1: me know. But curling, it's it's this very interesting, almost
6:27
Speaker 1: ritualistic activity and it is a little hard to kind
6:30
Speaker 1: of suss what is going on. So we're gonna do
6:33
Speaker 1: you all a solid and give you uh curling one
6:36
Speaker 1: oh one straight from the NBC Olympics website actually, as
6:41
Speaker 1: as the source Max found for this, and they should
6:43
Speaker 1: know because it's one of the most popular Winter Olympic sports.
6:48
Speaker 1: Um in the game. Yeah, yeah, so everybody throws two
6:52
Speaker 1: stones any game there. There aren't any people who only sweep.
6:57
Speaker 1: There aren't any any people who only throw stones. The
7:02
Speaker 1: stones are pretty heavy too. Don't think about hockey puck.
7:05
Speaker 1: These bad boys are like forty two pounds. They're pure granite.
7:09
Speaker 1: Always thought the stones were a little more bluesy than heavy.
7:11
Speaker 1: Ben never mind. Yeah, it's a music joke. Yeah, there's
7:19
Speaker 1: a music joke. Yes, thank you. The the these teams.
7:24
Speaker 1: Like we said, they take turns throwing these stones down
7:27
Speaker 1: this sheet of ice, which is about a d fifty
7:30
Speaker 1: ft or traditionally and then what they're what they're trying
7:33
Speaker 1: to do is like it's almost like that game where
7:35
Speaker 1: you toss a coin at a wall or a baseboard
7:39
Speaker 1: and try to get closest to the wall. Or maybe
7:42
Speaker 1: it's almost like cornhole. If if you guys remember that
7:45
Speaker 1: they're trying to get the stones inside the circular rings
7:49
Speaker 1: that are called the house, the house, the house of
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Speaker 1: the sliding rings. They call that. I would be the
7:56
Speaker 1: name of the kung Fu movie or the folk song
7:58
Speaker 1: about curling. You know, it reminds me of you're right
8:00
Speaker 1: about the corn corn hoole um, which is a name
8:03
Speaker 1: with the so silly that I hate to even say
8:05
Speaker 1: it out loud. It is fun, though, it's fun, you know,
8:07
Speaker 1: backyard game UM can fold up into a nice little
8:10
Speaker 1: portable suitcase situation with all your bags and your little
8:13
Speaker 1: hole UM. But I think of Max, I want to
8:16
Speaker 1: check you on this um game called the tonk also
8:20
Speaker 1: known as bocci ball, where it's about it's about proximity
8:24
Speaker 1: to a peg. So is there's a there's like a
8:26
Speaker 1: rash of these backyard kind of proximity games or like
8:29
Speaker 1: horseshoes where you can knock somebody else's thing and the
8:32
Speaker 1: closest with the slideyness of it all. I was so
8:35
Speaker 1: ship curling with shuffleboard. Yes, you know, you actually got
8:38
Speaker 1: like the examples we give to people when they're asking,
8:40
Speaker 1: it's like scoring wise, it's botch ball, um like play style,
8:44
Speaker 1: like what it looks like, it's shovel board. But actually, ben,
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Speaker 1: I really like yours about cornhole, because that's that's really good.
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Speaker 1: The only difference is cornhole is scored differently. Botch Ball
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Speaker 1: score wise is the closest, all right, and we know
8:56
Speaker 1: that there are When it comes to curling, there are
9:00
Speaker 1: a couple of very key beginning rules. First rule, don't
9:04
Speaker 1: talk about curling kidding. The first rule is first rule.
9:09
Speaker 1: The longest time nobody did that was a rule that
9:11
Speaker 1: was not a problem until came around and changed the game.
9:15
Speaker 1: We're about to get where we may be in danger
9:18
Speaker 1: from big curling folks. This might be the stuff they
9:20
Speaker 1: don't want you to know. Different show. The first rule
9:24
Speaker 1: is the rings mark how close your stone is to
9:29
Speaker 1: that sweet spot in the middle. They don't mark how
9:31
Speaker 1: much your shot is worth. So every stone inside that
9:35
Speaker 1: ring is worth one point. And this means that if
9:39
Speaker 1: a stone is barely touching the furthest circle, it is
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Speaker 1: still worth the same amount of points as a stone
9:46
Speaker 1: directly in the middle, directly on the button. Give me
9:49
Speaker 1: just say it to you. You just said it been
9:51
Speaker 1: like in the way people would say it as a phrase,
9:53
Speaker 1: but on the button. You ever heard someone say that
9:55
Speaker 1: for like getting something just right? Max, that's a curling reference,
9:59
Speaker 1: or is or the others are just kind of like
10:01
Speaker 1: parallel parallel. I have no idea, so I'm gonna stay
10:04
Speaker 1: with the curling reference, and everything comes from curling. Everything, Max, ever,
10:10
Speaker 1: is a curling reference that we just didn't get for
10:13
Speaker 1: like years, which is reframings of conversations. So each game,
10:18
Speaker 1: you know, I'm talking about downs. I know what a
10:20
Speaker 1: down is, guys, I'm just playing up my sports idiocy.
10:24
Speaker 1: But an end is what it's called in curling. It's
10:28
Speaker 1: sort of like an inning in baseball. Or I guess, well,
10:31
Speaker 1: I guess in football there's a quarter and then the
10:32
Speaker 1: quarter is divided into downs. Is that right? Downs are
10:36
Speaker 1: like the thing first down, second down, third down, and
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Speaker 1: that's the end of the quarter. Is am I right
10:40
Speaker 1: about that? Max? Kind of it's yeah, it's like a down. Yeah,
10:46
Speaker 1: thank you. It makes no sense and it does have
10:50
Speaker 1: by the way, a dubious fact about American football, it
10:55
Speaker 1: has the worst commercial to play ratios of any sport
11:01
Speaker 1: uh in history by a wide margin. But a down
11:04
Speaker 1: is like when a team as possession of a ball.
11:08
Speaker 1: So if team Max Max just picking animal, it doesn't
11:12
Speaker 1: matter podcasts. Okay, So if the Maximilian Bobcats are playing
11:17
Speaker 1: the Casey La Bushes and the Bobcats have the ball
11:22
Speaker 1: and they're trying to they're trying to get to the
11:24
Speaker 1: end zone and make a score, then they can they
11:28
Speaker 1: It's kind of like they get four chances to get
11:31
Speaker 1: it across the field if they like, if they fumble
11:34
Speaker 1: or they like get you know, fifteen yards forward before
11:37
Speaker 1: they get tackled, then that's like first down and right,
11:41
Speaker 1: But aren't aren't the aren't there? Isn't the game delineated
11:44
Speaker 1: into a series? I mean, if that's their chances, then
11:47
Speaker 1: it goes to the other side and then they get
11:48
Speaker 1: a number of chances and then that ends a portion
11:51
Speaker 1: of the game. Or are they unrelated? So it's time based.
11:54
Speaker 1: Football is comic conglomeration of multiple like sports is rules
11:57
Speaker 1: and stuff. It's a later sports, so it's got a
11:59
Speaker 1: lot like you can see, like I got a lot
12:01
Speaker 1: of soccer, and then like other sports who have evolved
12:04
Speaker 1: from soccer, like hockey and stuff like that. But it's
12:08
Speaker 1: it's all a metaphor for war anyways. It's a metaphor
12:12
Speaker 1: for napoleotic warfare. And I think maybe that's why football
12:16
Speaker 1: is so popular. But alstilly Whiten doesn't do it for me.
12:18
Speaker 1: And the more I read about curling, Max, and the
12:21
Speaker 1: more I mean, I give you a little guff about
12:22
Speaker 1: it out of love, but it just seems like a
12:25
Speaker 1: pretty chill, peaceful kind of sport, like I mean, because
12:27
Speaker 1: you're you're helping each other out. It's team base. You're
12:30
Speaker 1: not really fighting each other, You're just fighting against the
12:32
Speaker 1: the ice, you know, and gravity. It seems meditative, which
12:36
Speaker 1: I think is what I like about it. So once
12:39
Speaker 1: all these shots have been thrown, you get to the
12:43
Speaker 1: scoring portion. You calculate scores by looking at the closest
12:46
Speaker 1: stones to the button. Whichever team has the closest shot
12:51
Speaker 1: to the center gets one point, and if that team
12:54
Speaker 1: has the second closest shot, they get two points, and
12:57
Speaker 1: if they have the third closest they get three, and
13:00
Speaker 1: on and on. But if the opposing team has a
13:05
Speaker 1: shot closer, then that's where scoring stops. So like, if
13:10
Speaker 1: Team Ghostbusters got the closest thing, they would get a point.
13:14
Speaker 1: But then if their opponent, Team Police Academy had the
13:17
Speaker 1: second closest, they would just get one point. We were
13:27
Speaker 1: talking off air, some of our fellow ridiculous historians maybe saying, guys,
13:31
Speaker 1: what's what's the history here? You're telling us about the
13:34
Speaker 1: rules of curling, and I think you're doing a great job,
13:37
Speaker 1: hopefully that's what you're saying to us, But what what
13:40
Speaker 1: about the history? I suggest we take just a second
13:43
Speaker 1: for a moment with Max. Here. Max, let's do some
13:46
Speaker 1: personal ridiculous history. How did you get involved in this
13:49
Speaker 1: whole curling thing to begin with? Did you invent curling? No,
13:53
Speaker 1: curling very much predates me, you and even nol and
13:59
Speaker 1: even Matt like you know, way before us. But um so,
14:03
Speaker 1: I am like from Atlanta, this is my home, but
14:06
Speaker 1: I was actually born in Detroit. I moved here when
14:08
Speaker 1: I was six. And here's the thing about living in
14:10
Speaker 1: Detroit at least in the nineties, is you got Canadian
14:12
Speaker 1: public television? What do you think Canadian public television showed
14:16
Speaker 1: all the time curling and kids in the Hall reruns?
14:18
Speaker 1: Probably in the hall, Yeah, in the hall. Yeah, we
14:23
Speaker 1: got the entire box set, like a room over from here.
14:25
Speaker 1: But um, I remember like watching curling as a kid
14:28
Speaker 1: and being like, oh, it's so cool. Then I moved
14:30
Speaker 1: down to Atlanta and then there was nothing, like no
14:33
Speaker 1: one had even heard of it. I mean, granted, there's
14:34
Speaker 1: not really nice sports down Atlanta for people who don't know,
14:37
Speaker 1: Atlanta is really hot, and so I mean I've alway's
14:42
Speaker 1: just been something, especially because of the Olympics. And then
14:43
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, got more popular, and like the
14:45
Speaker 1: two thousands and tens got more popular, and then I
14:48
Speaker 1: was just like, yeah, let's get into the sport. Why
14:50
Speaker 1: don't we try to figure out how to play this sport?
14:52
Speaker 1: All right? Max, Now that we have a little bit
14:54
Speaker 1: of your personal curling history, which I don't know, it's
14:57
Speaker 1: just you guys. You your family, man, I'll tell you
14:59
Speaker 1: you and your other Alex who composed this banging bob uh,
15:02
Speaker 1: your parents, You're all like very interesting people who have
15:06
Speaker 1: very interesting and sort of off the beaten path hobbies
15:09
Speaker 1: and and interests. I mean, your brother has a whole
15:12
Speaker 1: podcast about that called Ephemeral that you work on. It's
15:15
Speaker 1: just about like just odd pieces of esoterica throughout culture
15:19
Speaker 1: and history and things that would otherwise kind of go unnoticed.
15:23
Speaker 1: You and your family are people that notice that kind
15:25
Speaker 1: of stuff, and I think it's really cool And this
15:27
Speaker 1: is a great example. It would take a special person
15:30
Speaker 1: to see such a strange and and uh esoteric kind
15:34
Speaker 1: of sport that on the onset doesn't seem particularly inviting
15:37
Speaker 1: and be like, no, I'm gonna find a way to
15:40
Speaker 1: make this inviting. This is this speaks to me in
15:42
Speaker 1: some way. Um, so kudos for that. But you wrote
15:45
Speaker 1: up this amazing we're trying to trying to invite people
15:48
Speaker 1: into the world of curling by starting off with getting
15:51
Speaker 1: your head around some of the rules, and Max, you
15:53
Speaker 1: wrote up this amazing scenario. Uh the scenario to to
15:57
Speaker 1: to quick terrify it about like how how a round
16:00
Speaker 1: of play would go? Can you walk us through that
16:03
Speaker 1: and we'll kind of well, we'll help pull chime in
16:05
Speaker 1: as needed. But you've got some very fun little hypothetical
16:08
Speaker 1: uh team team names that I think will help everyone
16:11
Speaker 1: really get get an understanding of how this goes down.
16:14
Speaker 1: All right, So here I'm gonna set it up real quick.
16:17
Speaker 1: So let's to say we have two teams. We have
16:18
Speaker 1: a Team Noll and we have a Team Bend. So
16:21
Speaker 1: Team Noll there's four people. Remember on these teams, there's
16:24
Speaker 1: just four slightly different versions of Noels. So we got
16:27
Speaker 1: Nerdy Doll, we got a biker Knoll, we got an
16:30
Speaker 1: invisible Knoll, and we have a wizard Knoll. And now
16:34
Speaker 1: we look over a Team Ben. It's just four identical Bends.
16:36
Speaker 1: Like these are completely the same, all same, except maybe
16:40
Speaker 1: very different hats or something like that. You know, Yeah,
16:43
Speaker 1: each of Ben's hat incarnations Ben Ben sort of like
16:46
Speaker 1: a multi hat kind of dude anyway, so it could
16:48
Speaker 1: be each one of his like hat forms. Right, there's
16:51
Speaker 1: the there's yeah, Ben, please the other one. You got
16:57
Speaker 1: a really nice um kind of newsy hat you wear
16:59
Speaker 1: some times that I really like. Sure, yes, and let's
17:02
Speaker 1: go for it. So there's uh so okay, so these
17:06
Speaker 1: these guys are head to head. They've played there first round,
17:11
Speaker 1: right or excuse me, first end first hand? Yes, and
17:14
Speaker 1: so after the first end, Team Noel has like the
17:17
Speaker 1: first and the second closest shot to the center. So
17:20
Speaker 1: at the end of this we totaled it up and boom,
17:22
Speaker 1: two points for Team Noel. But now we're gonna go
17:24
Speaker 1: to the second end. Now Here, at the end of
17:27
Speaker 1: the second end, Team Ben has the closest shot, the
17:30
Speaker 1: third closest shot, the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and
17:33
Speaker 1: ninth closest shot. But Team no after a magical shot
17:37
Speaker 1: by Wizard Dole. We don't know how he did it,
17:40
Speaker 1: but it was just I just made a sound effect
17:42
Speaker 1: and just said pew, and everything just kind of fell
17:44
Speaker 1: into place right, and so and how he lies the
17:47
Speaker 1: second closest shot. So that's not eight points between Ben,
17:50
Speaker 1: that is just one point because it is the order
17:52
Speaker 1: or the shot rock. Whoever has the closest shot Rock
17:55
Speaker 1: gets the point. Whoever a second gets two points. But
17:58
Speaker 1: as soon as the other team has closer shot than
18:00
Speaker 1: any of your other shots, bam cuts off scoring right there. Now,
18:04
Speaker 1: isn't that how it goes in shuffle board too? Or
18:06
Speaker 1: no um or maybe it's inbout you there. I know
18:09
Speaker 1: there's that you mentioned the scoring being similar to one
18:11
Speaker 1: of those games, and now I'm completely spacing on which
18:13
Speaker 1: one it was, but that sounds familiar to ball. Okay,
18:17
Speaker 1: so you kind of line up those shots, and the
18:20
Speaker 1: moment somebody gets a superior shot to all those ones
18:23
Speaker 1: that are laying on the field, than that is the
18:25
Speaker 1: one that takes precedent, that is the one that takes
18:28
Speaker 1: the cake. And I have a question for you, Max,
18:31
Speaker 1: is it is it possible to knock other rocks out
18:36
Speaker 1: of the way. Yes, it is, you can very much
18:38
Speaker 1: do so. I mean there are certain rules like the
18:40
Speaker 1: free guard zone, so like certain shots early on in
18:43
Speaker 1: the end, you can't take those up because those are
18:45
Speaker 1: set up to be like you know, stimulate like like
18:48
Speaker 1: scoring and make the game more exciting and more strategic.
18:51
Speaker 1: But let's just say no, as a shot in a
18:54
Speaker 1: spot where you want it, you can take no shot
18:56
Speaker 1: out and put your rock right there. Okay, So we've
18:59
Speaker 1: and we've seen this happen with other other similar games
19:02
Speaker 1: we've described. You also have pretty comprehensive list of rules
19:06
Speaker 1: and roles which we can we can dive into maybe
19:10
Speaker 1: along the way before you that can, Ben, can you
19:13
Speaker 1: tell me what other hats your your clones were wearing.
19:15
Speaker 1: I just have to know. I want to picture this. Sure. Yeah,
19:19
Speaker 1: one is a astronaut helmet. One is a Jason Vorhees mask,
19:25
Speaker 1: but it's put up, you know, uh so itinically qualifies
19:29
Speaker 1: as a hat. Okay, so we've got we got were
19:31
Speaker 1: four players, right, four players per team, which we're gonna
19:33
Speaker 1: get get into with the roles in a second. So
19:36
Speaker 1: we've got the lead, the second, the vice skip, and
19:40
Speaker 1: the skip. I'm gonna say that baseball hat Ben is
19:43
Speaker 1: the lead, Newsy hat Ben is the second, astronaut helmet
19:46
Speaker 1: Ben is the vice skip, and the skip is Jason
19:50
Speaker 1: Vorhees top of head hat wearing Ben. So these are
19:55
Speaker 1: these are all important roles and they all do those
19:57
Speaker 1: things as they're sort of title. But they also are
20:00
Speaker 1: shooters too, Max correct, Yes, everyone shoots two stones. He
20:04
Speaker 1: kind of going that way, and each person has like
20:05
Speaker 1: a different objective with what they're trying to do. So
20:08
Speaker 1: like the leads trying to set up and like you know,
20:11
Speaker 1: build out for strategy, while at the second and vice
20:13
Speaker 1: skip or more like, okay, we gotta either correct misshots
20:17
Speaker 1: from previous people or you know, mess with the other
20:19
Speaker 1: team strategy because you can't let the other team get ahead,
20:21
Speaker 1: and the skip at the very ends, it's like, Okay,
20:23
Speaker 1: I have to fine tune this so our strategy can
20:27
Speaker 1: do is or bail out the team. So it's kind
20:29
Speaker 1: of all that, and everyone does different things, like some
20:31
Speaker 1: people sweep, some people call shots, some people sweep and
20:34
Speaker 1: call shots at the vice skip. It's a lot. It's
20:36
Speaker 1: like going on. Also, the I like how you noted
20:40
Speaker 1: the second is in one curler's opinion the bag man
20:45
Speaker 1: of the team is that curler you is it your opinion?
20:50
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not gonna say who this one curlier
20:53
Speaker 1: that we're always getting an opinion from is, but you know,
20:56
Speaker 1: it may or may not be me. I will not deny,
20:58
Speaker 1: but I will not confirm. Bagman meaning you're like carrying
21:02
Speaker 1: water for the whole team, or like you're you're the
21:05
Speaker 1: guy that's sort of like cannon fodder or something. You
21:09
Speaker 1: can always trust the bagman to do the job, to
21:11
Speaker 1: do the job. I see, I see, I see, I see.
21:13
Speaker 1: I think my understanding of what a bagman actually means
21:16
Speaker 1: is always fluctuating over time. The skip, though, I like
21:20
Speaker 1: because the idea it makes me think of like a skipper,
21:22
Speaker 1: like like the captain of a ship, and you know,
21:25
Speaker 1: this is a vaguely water adjacent sport. You are on
21:28
Speaker 1: water just happens to be frozen and you're sailing kind
21:31
Speaker 1: of a vessel, you know, in the stone. So and
21:33
Speaker 1: I mean maybe you don't know, but do you think
21:35
Speaker 1: that is the skip referring to the action of play
21:39
Speaker 1: like skipping a rock or something like that, or is
21:41
Speaker 1: a skip like the skipper reference like someone who's directing
21:45
Speaker 1: and guiding, you know, a team. I would probably say
21:48
Speaker 1: it's the latter. I think it probably comes from that.
21:51
Speaker 1: That would make the most sense to me. Yeah, there's
21:53
Speaker 1: a there are many other factors that play into this.
21:56
Speaker 1: There are a lot of other rules like the clock,
21:58
Speaker 1: the hogline, player substitutions, etcetera, including the free guard zone
22:04
Speaker 1: that you had you had mentioned earlier, Max, But we've
22:07
Speaker 1: given you the basics here, so now we're gonna dive
22:10
Speaker 1: into the history. Despite the rumors that are everywhere on
22:15
Speaker 1: Twitter in the internet. Uh, Max Williams, by his own admission,
22:19
Speaker 1: did not event curling. It was according to the World
22:23
Speaker 1: Curling Federation. It is, like we said, one of the
22:27
Speaker 1: oldest extant team sports. You can see references to it
22:32
Speaker 1: all the way back in like paintings from Flemish folks
22:36
Speaker 1: such as Peter Briegel. In one of his paints in particular,
22:39
Speaker 1: there's a frozen pond with people playing on it. Most
22:42
Speaker 1: of them are ice skating, but if you look at
22:44
Speaker 1: the towards the bottom of the painting, you'll see there
22:47
Speaker 1: are people who have what are clearly curling rocks and
22:51
Speaker 1: they're throwing them down the ice. And sometimes that's the
22:53
Speaker 1: way we get historical contexts and paintings, little images of
22:56
Speaker 1: things that were like enough in the parlance of a
22:59
Speaker 1: period it that they were worthy to be incorporated into
23:03
Speaker 1: a beautiful scene of you know, outdoorsy frolicking and whatnot.
23:09
Speaker 1: We also have early written examples of curling from the
23:12
Speaker 1: literary work of the Scottish writer John McQuinn. He wrote
23:16
Speaker 1: a protocol book where he recorded a challenge between John Sclator,
23:22
Speaker 1: who was a monk at an abbey, and Gavin Hamilton's,
23:25
Speaker 1: who represented the abbot uh And not much as known
23:29
Speaker 1: about the actual match how things, you know, turned out,
23:32
Speaker 1: but it is known that Slator apparently through a rock
23:35
Speaker 1: or a stone down a sheet device three times and
23:37
Speaker 1: then asserted that he was ready that's that's the the
23:41
Speaker 1: impression that we got, uh yeah, and it makes sense,
23:44
Speaker 1: like if you're in a part of the world where
23:46
Speaker 1: you have where water freezes, you know, seasonally, people start
23:50
Speaker 1: to figure out ways of enjoying it, whether it be
23:52
Speaker 1: like you know, attaching uh, steel blades to the bottles
23:56
Speaker 1: of shoes like the Dutch, or like cutting holes in
23:58
Speaker 1: the ice to to try catch fish. You know, you realize,
24:02
Speaker 1: like skipping a stone down a creek, that you can
24:04
Speaker 1: slide a stone on a frozen creek or a frozen
24:07
Speaker 1: lake or a frozen pond. And then, you know, humans
24:10
Speaker 1: like to make things more complicated and start to institute
24:13
Speaker 1: rules and all of that stuff, and like the old
24:15
Speaker 1: tradition of anything, you start getting variations and things that
24:19
Speaker 1: start to get picked up, and when people start to
24:21
Speaker 1: kind of adopt the ones they like the best, and
24:24
Speaker 1: the winners kind of rise to the top in terms
24:26
Speaker 1: of like the rules, and then before you know it,
24:28
Speaker 1: you got yourself sport, right yeah. And this is a
24:31
Speaker 1: bit of a mysterious sport because, like a lot of
24:34
Speaker 1: old sports, there are controversies and contradicting claims about its genesis.
24:42
Speaker 1: We don't know a ton about the early beginnings now,
24:46
Speaker 1: but it's widely believed Scotland is the birthplace of the sport.
24:51
Speaker 1: Scotland is definitely home to the first recognized curling clubs, right,
24:56
Speaker 1: associations of curling enthusiasts. The two big ones are the
24:59
Speaker 1: Kills Curling Club. They say they're the oldest and their
25:03
Speaker 1: ponds or their club was established in seventeen sixteen, but
25:07
Speaker 1: people have been playing there since the fifteen hundreds. And
25:11
Speaker 1: then there's the kin Ross Curling Club who disagrees. They
25:17
Speaker 1: were established in sixteen sixty eight and they say they're
25:20
Speaker 1: one of the oldest, if not the oldest. So if
25:22
Speaker 1: those two groups ever play matches together, I imagine that
25:26
Speaker 1: rivalry is legendary. It is true though it's it's a
25:30
Speaker 1: very old sport. It didn't actually have formal rules for
25:36
Speaker 1: a long time for a couple of centuries, right, it
25:38
Speaker 1: was like a house rules or this is how we
25:40
Speaker 1: played in our pond. Yeah, I mean even today they're
25:43
Speaker 1: like regional or just different kind of like variations of
25:47
Speaker 1: like simple card games. And of course for a game
25:49
Speaker 1: like curling that was very much founded based on conditions
25:53
Speaker 1: in certain parts of the world, that makes absolute sense.
25:56
Speaker 1: So in eighteen thirty eight we started to see a
25:58
Speaker 1: bit more of a catification of the rules of curling
26:02
Speaker 1: when we saw the Grand Caledonian Curling Club, Uh, that's
26:08
Speaker 1: a mouthful, become kind of the authority on curling in
26:12
Speaker 1: the same way you might have like the n C
26:14
Speaker 1: Double A or whatever, you know, different divisions of of
26:17
Speaker 1: basketball or football. You know, again when I don't even
26:21
Speaker 1: know which one that is, because I'm not a sports guy,
26:24
Speaker 1: but the g C c C or G Triple C is,
26:27
Speaker 1: how I'm gonna say, is that thing for curling And
26:30
Speaker 1: it was established in Edinburgh, Scotland in eighteen thirty eight.
26:33
Speaker 1: The G Triple C really did later, I mean again,
26:36
Speaker 1: early on. It certainly helped establish, like, you know, unified
26:40
Speaker 1: sets of rules, but it really did become the kind
26:43
Speaker 1: of end all, be all epicenter of the curling universe. Uh.
26:46
Speaker 1: In eighteen forty two they put on a formal curling
26:49
Speaker 1: demonstration for Queen Victoria and she was delighted and amused.
26:53
Speaker 1: She was so amazed by the performance. The next year
26:56
Speaker 1: she gave the club her permission to change the name
26:58
Speaker 1: to the Royal Caledonian Curling Club instead of grant she
27:03
Speaker 1: can get an upgrade to Royal and honestly, we probably
27:05
Speaker 1: could do a whole episode on this club alone. They
27:09
Speaker 1: literally have the title the mother Club of curling. That's
27:12
Speaker 1: their historical kind of honorific from the World Curling Federation,
27:16
Speaker 1: which is the thing now that sort of maybe took
27:18
Speaker 1: their place a bit, But for those who are curious,
27:21
Speaker 1: you can check into their activities to this day on
27:25
Speaker 1: their website Royal Caledonian Curling Club dot org dot org. Yeah,
27:31
Speaker 1: and now as people from Scotland begin to move to
27:35
Speaker 1: other parts of the world where there's still cold weather,
27:38
Speaker 1: we see curling become a global phenomenon. We're looking particularly
27:43
Speaker 1: at Scandinavian countries, the US, even parts of New Zealand,
27:47
Speaker 1: but no country caught curling fever with quite the same
27:53
Speaker 1: ardor as Canada. They are believed currently to have over
27:57
Speaker 1: one thousand separate curling clubs, and by way of contrast
28:02
Speaker 1: their neighbors to the south, the US has about a
28:05
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty five, and that number marks a huge
28:08
Speaker 1: increase over time. We said earlier the Olympics brought curling
28:19
Speaker 1: to even more of a international stage in when they
28:23
Speaker 1: became an official sport there, but it wasn't the first
28:27
Speaker 1: time the Olympics actually featured curling. In nineteen twenty four,
28:33
Speaker 1: there was a kind of exhibition men's curling competition, just
28:38
Speaker 1: for anybody who likes to hold a regional Olympic grudge.
28:42
Speaker 1: Great Britain got the gold, Sweden got silver, and France
28:47
Speaker 1: got the bronze. These medals would later be awarded in
28:53
Speaker 1: two thousand and six. It took him a second. Just
28:55
Speaker 1: say it took him a second. And you know, ridiculous
28:57
Speaker 1: history where the last people to talk about out doing
29:01
Speaker 1: things a little late. We celebrate birthdays about four months later.
29:04
Speaker 1: We'll get to a Christmas episode sometime in June. We
29:07
Speaker 1: get it. But I wanted to ask Max, do you
29:10
Speaker 1: know why there was this? Did Was this like a
29:14
Speaker 1: retroactive reward or awards ceremony? Yeah? I think it was.
29:18
Speaker 1: If I remember when I was reading it on the
29:20
Speaker 1: World Curling Federations website, it was a kind of exhibition
29:24
Speaker 1: sport deemed at the time it was like we were
29:26
Speaker 1: just showing this off, but then later on they deemed
29:28
Speaker 1: it was actually a full sport. And at that Olympics,
29:32
Speaker 1: and I don't think demonstration or exhibitions formally get medals
29:36
Speaker 1: usually at least at that time, they didn't, so they
29:40
Speaker 1: were recognized retroactively as legit in the Olympics at that time.
29:45
Speaker 1: And there are all sorts of sports in the Olympics
29:48
Speaker 1: that aren't maybe common spectator sports outside of that, right,
29:52
Speaker 1: Like there's you're rarely going to see a local pole
29:56
Speaker 1: vaulting club do a bunch of you know, like have
30:00
Speaker 1: big to do. But the opposite is true as well.
30:02
Speaker 1: There are a lot of very popular sports that aren't
30:04
Speaker 1: really part of the Olympics. And not being in the
30:08
Speaker 1: Olympics doesn't necessarily stop a sports popularity, right. We know
30:13
Speaker 1: that In nineteen fifty nine, Scotland and Canada formed what
30:16
Speaker 1: they called the Scotch Cup. Uh it's tasty, you guys,
30:23
Speaker 1: fans of Scotch eggs. I yeah, it's a good Yeah,
30:26
Speaker 1: it's not to like you know, you know, I used
30:29
Speaker 1: to be weirded out by hard boiled eggs when I
30:31
Speaker 1: was younger. Um, I think it's just that happens as
30:34
Speaker 1: you get older. You just start to like heard hard
30:35
Speaker 1: boiled eggs and what's not to like with wrapping it
30:37
Speaker 1: and sausage and deep frying louise, I mean frying things
30:41
Speaker 1: fixes them, that's true. And most situated scotch cup is
30:44
Speaker 1: just a cup of scotch though. That's mine, okay, right on,
30:48
Speaker 1: I like my Scotch in this in this old plastic
30:53
Speaker 1: cup from the Olympics. I still have a cup from
30:55
Speaker 1: the Olympics. My parents just paid so much for it.
30:58
Speaker 1: I felt like we couldn't throw it away. Does have
31:01
Speaker 1: is He on it? Is that his name? The weird
31:02
Speaker 1: little does? Yeah? Yeah it does that little watcherman call
31:07
Speaker 1: it of an idea? Yes, yeah for anyone that doesn't
31:11
Speaker 1: isn't in the know? Atlanta host of the Olympics that year,
31:13
Speaker 1: and then we like, I don't know, they probably paid
31:15
Speaker 1: somebody gazillion dollars to design this stupid little blue cartoon
31:18
Speaker 1: character named is He that was like this little yeah,
31:21
Speaker 1: look at me, he can do spirit kind of little
31:24
Speaker 1: pixie or something and just uh, in one defense, they
31:30
Speaker 1: told the designer they wanted it to be something that
31:33
Speaker 1: no one would know what it is, that was purposeful
31:37
Speaker 1: and incorporating. Yeah. I don't think they designed or knows,
31:41
Speaker 1: but but you know, his mascots go, this guy was
31:45
Speaker 1: not the worst mascot anyhow. He probably didn't play curling
31:49
Speaker 1: because those were not Winter Olympics. Still, it's a tough
31:52
Speaker 1: job to make a mascot, and it's a tough job
31:55
Speaker 1: to play any sort of sport. We do want to
31:58
Speaker 1: note that there are several different I guess you would
32:02
Speaker 1: say types of curling, right specialization. There's team curling that
32:07
Speaker 1: has all male teams, all female identified teams juniors, there's
32:13
Speaker 1: a wheelchair curling, and then there are what are called
32:16
Speaker 1: mixed doubles. So this is definitely a sport that a
32:21
Speaker 1: lot of people can get into and expect to do
32:24
Speaker 1: reasonably well, right, which I would say also makes it
32:27
Speaker 1: different from something like professional basketball or professional football. It
32:31
Speaker 1: just seems like, I mean, it doesn't require you know,
32:34
Speaker 1: feats of strength exactly. It's more feats of restraint, right,
32:38
Speaker 1: It's like more about knowing exactly how much oomph to
32:42
Speaker 1: give the thing when you're pushing it. And then I mean,
32:44
Speaker 1: obviously it takes a little energy to scrub that ice
32:47
Speaker 1: as you go. But Max, what do you think is
32:48
Speaker 1: this a more accessible sport than say bob sledding or
32:52
Speaker 1: you know, downhill slalom ng Oh, yes, most definitely. I
32:56
Speaker 1: mean all you need for the sport is it's kind
32:58
Speaker 1: of like a will a while hunt and just just
33:01
Speaker 1: the experiment within. People are always like, what type a
33:03
Speaker 1: shoeshout I wear? Like, don't need special shoes, It's like,
33:05
Speaker 1: no normal shoes? Yeah, you got like any club you like?
33:08
Speaker 1: Do you need a broom? Do you need the funniest ones?
33:10
Speaker 1: I get asked like do I need to bring my
33:12
Speaker 1: own stones? It's like eight of them for a team,
33:16
Speaker 1: the forty two pounds a piece. Now you don't bring
33:18
Speaker 1: your own stones? Nice? Yeah, Also no special shoes. Take
33:23
Speaker 1: that bowling. That would be the other That would be
33:25
Speaker 1: another sport where people would say you don't have to
33:28
Speaker 1: be a certain body type to succeed. But we can't
33:31
Speaker 1: conclude this episode without answering some of the big big questions.
33:35
Speaker 1: These are questions I asked you very early on Max
33:38
Speaker 1: when I found out about your fascination. Why is the
33:41
Speaker 1: sport called curling? Other than describing the name, we haven't
33:46
Speaker 1: explained this at all. So the reason why it's called
33:49
Speaker 1: curling is because when you throw the stone, you either
33:52
Speaker 1: turn the handle to the left or to the right
33:54
Speaker 1: or clockwise counter clockwise, however you wish to prefer that,
33:57
Speaker 1: and that causes the stone to curl that direction, so
34:01
Speaker 1: it's not like you're just throwing stones straight. So let's
34:03
Speaker 1: say there's a guard stone in the front of that
34:05
Speaker 1: in front of the house, blocking stones behind it. You
34:07
Speaker 1: can draw behind you can curl behind it that you
34:10
Speaker 1: your stone behind that or I mean, it's very similar
34:13
Speaker 1: in this English, right, putting English on a pool call
34:17
Speaker 1: or putting spin on you know, any other kind of ball.
34:20
Speaker 1: And that's and I was actually about a reference pool.
34:22
Speaker 1: It's very someone that asked towards about angles, how can
34:24
Speaker 1: I bounce these angles and position my stones? I mean,
34:27
Speaker 1: what's really funny about the curling is it actually doesn't
34:30
Speaker 1: make any sense because if you think about physics, if
34:33
Speaker 1: it curls, if you're trying to curl it to the right,
34:34
Speaker 1: it would go to the left. So curling stones actually
34:37
Speaker 1: go the opposite direction of what they should. And no
34:40
Speaker 1: one actually knows the answer to this because they're imbued
34:43
Speaker 1: with wizard magic probably, I mean, and here's the funny things.
34:46
Speaker 1: Do you ask a curl or we're like, oh, why
34:48
Speaker 1: why does it do things? Like, I don't know. As
34:49
Speaker 1: long as it curls the way I wanted to go,
34:51
Speaker 1: then that's fine. Yeah, ok, Folk and also it's cool
34:57
Speaker 1: that if you try to throw a stone straight with
35:02
Speaker 1: no no spin on it, no curl, no english, then
35:06
Speaker 1: it won't go straight. It'll just sort of go where
35:10
Speaker 1: the ice wants, which is nuts because there is a
35:13
Speaker 1: lot of science to this. And that gets us to
35:16
Speaker 1: our next big question, what's the deal with the sweeping?
35:19
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm in sixty minutes? What's the deal
35:21
Speaker 1: was sweeping and curling? So the reason why you sweep
35:25
Speaker 1: is curling ice is different from like hockey ice or
35:28
Speaker 1: like figure skating ice, because that's just like flat, smooth,
35:31
Speaker 1: perfect ice. You try to throw a curling stone on that,
35:33
Speaker 1: it would go like three ft and stop and we'll
35:35
Speaker 1: go a little further than that, but it wouldn't go well.
35:37
Speaker 1: So what you do in curling is you like take
35:39
Speaker 1: these little little device it looks like a ghost Buster
35:42
Speaker 1: like backpack, and you put it on your back and
35:44
Speaker 1: you spray this little like pebbles of ice on the sheet.
35:47
Speaker 1: So it makes very little dust and that's what the
35:50
Speaker 1: curling rocks slides on. And so the reason why you
35:54
Speaker 1: sweep is if you sweep it, you're melting those little pebbles,
35:57
Speaker 1: causing them to be even less friction for your stone
35:59
Speaker 1: to go over, so it goes faster. And it was
36:01
Speaker 1: going faster as less time to curl to go straight.
36:04
Speaker 1: Or also, so let's say you have to get around
36:07
Speaker 1: a guard. You sweep it, sweep it, sweep it, sweep it.
36:10
Speaker 1: You get past the guard, you take off and just
36:11
Speaker 1: slowly curls behind it. Interesting, Okay, so those folks who
36:16
Speaker 1: are sweeping are doing something. It's not performance art. They're
36:21
Speaker 1: not like making some commentary on the Industrial Revolution. I
36:24
Speaker 1: always assumed they were doing something to help guide the
36:28
Speaker 1: path of it or to like even like by by
36:31
Speaker 1: by sweeping in a certain direction at a certain angle,
36:34
Speaker 1: they could change the direction of the stone. Is that
36:37
Speaker 1: accurate or no? So they claim they can do that,
36:41
Speaker 1: but it's been a common joke that directional sweeping it
36:44
Speaker 1: doesn't actually work. I mean you heard it. I heard
36:46
Speaker 1: a lot on the past Olympics like, oh, they're sweeping
36:48
Speaker 1: on that side for the directional and I think maybe
36:50
Speaker 1: at an Olympic level with semi professional curlers, there's no
36:54
Speaker 1: such thing really as a professional curler, and like, but
36:58
Speaker 1: like professionally maintained ice maybe do it. But like you
37:01
Speaker 1: go to a local curling club. There's no way in
37:03
Speaker 1: hell you're gonna be able to direct it with your
37:05
Speaker 1: sweeping Okay, unless you're somebody who like has a practice
37:10
Speaker 1: ice sweeping drink at your house. Right, Okay, alright, goals,
37:18
Speaker 1: let's make it happen. When we wrap this episode up,
37:20
Speaker 1: maybe we take this history into the future and maybe
37:25
Speaker 1: there are some of our fellow ridiculous historians who are asking, well,
37:28
Speaker 1: this sounds cool. How can I start to become a curler,
37:33
Speaker 1: A curlsman, a curl folk, myself, curler, curler? Okay, curls folk,
37:39
Speaker 1: I like, but I respect your expertise here, Max. So these,
37:42
Speaker 1: uh you mentioned there are these clubs that people can join.
37:48
Speaker 1: How do you how do you get involved? What's going on? Well,
37:51
Speaker 1: I mean, so like people think like, oh, there's probably
37:53
Speaker 1: no curling clubs. There's a hundred and eighty five of them.
37:55
Speaker 1: I believe that's what USA Curling says. Kros the United States,
37:59
Speaker 1: and obviously like Minnesota, Michigan, New York, may and they
38:04
Speaker 1: got a lot of them. But that does not mean
38:06
Speaker 1: that like here on at the warmer states are excluded.
38:08
Speaker 1: So there's three clubs in Tennessee. There's actually four in Florida,
38:12
Speaker 1: and there's seven in California, including three in Los Angeles.
38:15
Speaker 1: There's a lot of them. Wow. And you know, without
38:19
Speaker 1: without putting you two on the spot, rumor has it,
38:22
Speaker 1: there's even a curling club here in our fair metropolis
38:26
Speaker 1: of Atlanta, Georgia. Yes, there is. There is the Atlanta
38:29
Speaker 1: Curling Club located here in our fair metropolis, as you
38:33
Speaker 1: have said, and they curl at the Atlanta Ice Forum.
38:37
Speaker 1: And but I'll let you take the honors here. You
38:38
Speaker 1: can read this Nextlanta have in the brief. It may
38:41
Speaker 1: or may not have been co founded by our lovely superproducer,
38:46
Speaker 1: the one, the amazing, the self described ungodly Maxwell James
38:51
Speaker 1: William the first. I think we need a sound right now.
39:07
Speaker 1: You just just just full name Max. I love that
39:11
Speaker 1: is he in troubles. That's that's a quote for him. Also,
39:15
Speaker 1: I like adding the first there that's classy first of
39:18
Speaker 1: his name Maxwell. I'm gonna start using that. But yeah,
39:20
Speaker 1: and also if you're ever interested, you just go to
39:22
Speaker 1: the USA Curling and they have a fine club. Tool Kid,
39:26
Speaker 1: We'll just show you the closest one. If you're near
39:28
Speaker 1: any big metropolitan area, there's probably curling club in area,
39:31
Speaker 1: and you too can become a part of the spirit
39:35
Speaker 1: of curling, which is a very important concept unique to
39:39
Speaker 1: the support. I mean, it's not unique to this sport.
39:41
Speaker 1: It's called the spirit of curling. It's unique, but it embodies,
39:44
Speaker 1: you know, the idea of respect to one another, of
39:48
Speaker 1: people that are playing the sport, but also to the
39:50
Speaker 1: sport itself. It's about skill and tradition, about executing shots well,
39:55
Speaker 1: about taking joy in others and in their success. So
40:00
Speaker 1: I really really is kind of I like the fact
40:02
Speaker 1: that you're playing against other teams, but not like head
40:06
Speaker 1: to head, like you know, clashing. You're just sort of
40:08
Speaker 1: doing your own thing and then it all comes out
40:10
Speaker 1: in the wash in terms of the scoring. Uh. This
40:13
Speaker 1: is all from the World Curling Federation, by the way
40:16
Speaker 1: that they describe the spirit of curling. Thus, like true
40:20
Speaker 1: curler never attempts to distract opponents, nor to prevent them
40:24
Speaker 1: from playing their best. It would prefer to lose rather
40:27
Speaker 1: than to win unfairly. Curlers never knowingly break a rule
40:31
Speaker 1: of the game, nor disrespect any of its traditions. Should
40:34
Speaker 1: they become aware that this has been done inadvertently, they
40:37
Speaker 1: would be the first to devolve the breach, which is
40:41
Speaker 1: really you know, wholesome. And you can see this in
40:44
Speaker 1: curling games where the opposing team will congratulate their rivals
40:50
Speaker 1: on a really well done move, the every everybody on
40:53
Speaker 1: the everybody on the ice will have that oh snap,
40:57
Speaker 1: cool moments, which doesn't happen all the time and other sports.
41:01
Speaker 1: So that's one of the reasons I think that we are,
41:05
Speaker 1: at least I am a newly converted fan of curling.
41:08
Speaker 1: And we hope that you enjoyed today's episode. Folks. This
41:12
Speaker 1: may this may have been a little longer than usual,
41:15
Speaker 1: but uh, there's a lot of love went into this
41:17
Speaker 1: when a lot of and a lot of research too.
41:20
Speaker 1: So for that we have to start by thinking the
41:23
Speaker 1: super producer, the man, the myth, the legend, lover of sports,
41:26
Speaker 1: lover of trains, curling and star trek, Mr Max Williams.
41:30
Speaker 1: It has been an honor, Yes, it's been an honor
41:32
Speaker 1: as well. It's been a lot of fun. Uh. You know,
41:34
Speaker 1: any time I get a chance to talk about curling,
41:36
Speaker 1: I like to take advantage of that. I know you do, buddy,
41:39
Speaker 1: and now I at least am armed with the knowledge
41:41
Speaker 1: to be able to properly engage with you on this um,
41:46
Speaker 1: on this topic. So so next time you won't go
41:48
Speaker 1: to sleep while the US is playing in a gold
41:50
Speaker 1: medal match. What I'm sorry? Yes, true story, one story
41:53
Speaker 1: I want to leave us with before we finally end this.
41:56
Speaker 1: Back in twenty the United States one, they're only gold
42:00
Speaker 1: medal and curling. It's when the John's Schuster led team
42:03
Speaker 1: upset the favorite Sweden for the golden medal. This was
42:08
Speaker 1: during the infamous hot tub trip. Then this is the
42:11
Speaker 1: cabin trip, Mr Noel Brown. This is a trip he
42:15
Speaker 1: drake that whiskey that he apologized for on Tuesday's episode.
42:19
Speaker 1: He was there, the opportunity was there, but he opted
42:22
Speaker 1: for sleep. Granted it was in Korea at the time,
42:25
Speaker 1: and it was very, very very early in the morning
42:28
Speaker 1: when I was watching this, but it was magical night,
42:32
Speaker 1: magical night. Indeed, So ashamed, uh, not really ashamed at all.
42:36
Speaker 1: I do not recall any of this, Max, but I
42:37
Speaker 1: I believe your recollection, at least when curling is involved.
42:41
Speaker 1: And I do apologize for drinking that fine bottle of whiskey,
42:43
Speaker 1: but it was good and probably contributed to my sleepiness.
42:46
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie I end up during the rest
42:48
Speaker 1: of it while during the match myself, it must have
42:50
Speaker 1: been an awesome brunch moments a few hours later. With this,
42:55
Speaker 1: we also of course want to thank our composer, Mr
42:58
Speaker 1: Alex Williams. Check out his go with his brother Max
43:00
Speaker 1: ephemeral When you get a chance, Thanks to Eve's Jeff Coat,
43:04
Speaker 1: thanks to Christopher Hasciotis, and thanks to Jonathan Strickland. I
43:09
Speaker 1: think this. I think participating in curling could probably do
43:12
Speaker 1: a lot for that guy. Emotionally. I know he's really angry.
43:15
Speaker 1: He's just so angry. We'll see you next time, folks.
43:25
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
43:28
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
43:31
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.