Comments on: In Defense of Curling

By: Evan Davis

Evan Davis — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:49:29 +0000

I suppose that the only argument for curling and against other unphysical sports like snooker, billiards, darts and shuffleboard is that athletics just might indeed have to pass a minimum threshold of physical involvement to be considered of a similar status. Curling does, while snooker, billiards, darts and shuffleboard do not.

Or perhaps the perspective against the above four would be that curling is a sporting tradition somewhere (Canada and Scotland), therefore it should be considered legitimate.

Really, though, I just feel that curling has got something that the aforementioned “bar” sports do not. I love it with all my heart.

By: Jonathan Gray

Jonathan Gray — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 03:57:13 +0000

You’re spot on in the final par., Cornel — my ire isn’t so much directed at those who make fun of curling as at those who do so from the self-anointed holy high ground of being fans of a supposedly exciting, brilliant, captivating sport.

By: Cornel Sandvoss

Cornel Sandvoss — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:41:18 +0000

In the little time I had to watch this year, I quite enjoyed Curling, too. There is also a chapter on Curling at the Winter Olympics in a forthcoming book by Hugh O’Donnell (I will post the link here nearer publication).

However, while I want to agree with everything you say, the same argument could be made for Snooker and Darts, the two most appalling sports ever to (dis)grace TV screens as the sporting equivalent of low-production values-Reality TV.

I would argue this: it’s not so much a problem that we are making fun of curling. The problem is that we do not make even remotely enough fun of (all) other sports!