I was eating at the DFAC and watching coverage of the Olympics. Curling was being featured. How does one become a curler? Is it really a sport. I think it is more of a game than a sport. Where is the athletic ability need for this?

1) live in a cold place, like the midwest where I grew up. in minnesota and wisconsin it's not difficult to find clubs for otherwise obscure sports, like curling, bandy and even ski jumping.

2) i'm told that curling is actually very difficult, although not neccessarily in an athletic sense. although i suppose running and sweeping could cause one to sweat.

try doing it. its actually incredibly hard.

I'm not doubting the difficulty of it. There are lots of things the are "hard to do". It doesn't make it a sport. IMO, the Olympics is for athletic endeavors.

Curling is a sport because it is measurable and not judged.

you need an incredible amount of strength and stamina to sweep all the rocks down the ice. to throw the rocks you also need a lot of co-ordination and skill. i think the combination of those things are about as much as you can ask for from a sport.

I came across this on MSN. check your city.

http://local.msn.com/special/rockspots.asp?GT1=7771[/url]

are you one of those "golf isn't really a sport" people?

no, golf is a sport
Curling is a sport because it is measurable and not judged.

but figure skating is judged and that is a sport.

I used to think curling was pretty fucking stupid as well, but I've watched it a few times over the years and it is strangely entertaining.

The town next to us has a ski jump.

Curling is strangely entertaining; I grew up watching it as my dad was fairly good at the sport and has a mess of curling trophies from different bonspiels.

I love the curling yell: "SWEEP IT! HURRYHURRYHURRYHURRYHURRY!"

One good curling movie can change the face of the sport. I know there was already a Canadian one, but I mean one along the level of Kingpin and The Great Lebowski, which have elevated bowling beyond dorkness to "celebrated dorkness."

I don't know which is worse, mentioning Kingpin in the same utterance, or mis-naming The Big Lebowski.

Wrong. Figure skating is not a sport. Same with gymnastics and ballroom dancing.

Curling is in the non-mainstream yet strangely entertaing sports category with Sumo and Water Polo.

Yeah, that was bad.

I'll go along with this. Too much wiggle-room in snowboarding and ice skating for my tastes. Although I enjoy them.

I was watching the women's snowboarding last night and was struck how clunky and ungraceful the whole thing seems in those baggy suits. They look like astonauts flipping around on those boards.

One of my buddies was in a curling club and I played a few times... it's really a lot of fun.

HAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRD!

Let's see you do a triple toe loop, that takes athletic ability....When was the last time a curler ruptured their achilles tendon praticing thier chosen sport.

I didn't say a single word about athletic ability. I said it wasn't a sport, because it is not measurable. Being a Hollywood stuntman requires athletic ability--and athletic injuries--but it's not a sport.

At the same time, it is not necessary to complete a task before you can categorize it.

I enjoy curling. I even played in a league for a while. It's not the most demanding game at the club level, but like golf, the top competitors need to be in good shape, physically and mentally. I'd definitely say it qualifies as a sport.

I'd also like to see less judged sports in the Olympics. They're rife with corruption, and if you want to be picky, they don't exactly fit in the Citius, Altius, Fortius motto.

I just liked watching the asian chicks do the splits.

Amen to that!!!!

people need to get off this "it's not a sport stuff." it's called the olympic GAMES for a reason.