Olympic Comment

I hate to admit this, since it potentially calls both my patriotism and sports fandom into question, but I have not been watching the Winter Olympic Games. The problem is that I really have no interest in the sports that comprise the Winter Games-- not skiing, not skating, not sledding; even hockey is something I find only intermittently entertaining. I know that part of the appeal is supposed to be the personal stories of the athletes, but most of that stuff just bores me. In fact the only sport performed at the Olympics that does interest me is curling, but it never seems to pop up on TV when I'm watching, and sitting through the other stuff waiting for it only triggers my channel surfing finger. Before I know it, even curling is the farthest thing from my mind as I become engrossed in yet another repeat of That 70s Show. Part of the reason why I like to watch curling is that it's pretty easy to see and appreciate the drama and strategy of the play-- or at least it seems so to me. Earlier today, I was listening to sports radio on a drive to Butte and the two hosts were going on and on about how incomprehensible curling was. These supposed professionals, whose job is to follow and report on sports (and who presumably didn't just start that job today) were mystified at what they saw on the sheet: couldn't make heads nor tails of what the sweepers were doing, expressed ignorance at what that big round thing was (a rock? an oversized hockey puck?), and likened the scoring system to some equation only an MIT prof could decipher. Hopefully, if I'm lucky enough to stumble on some curling before that part of the games concludes, the commentators will not share the willful ignorance of those bozos. But I suspect the odds are pretty slim (of the former point, not the latter).