Olympic Curling is Mind Numbingly Awful

Every four years it becomes trendy to 'like' watching Olympic Curling and I'm sick of it. During these Olympics I've had more conversations about curling than any other event combined and in every single conversation the other person has remarked about how much they "actually really like watching curling," but I'm calling bullshit. I think that the pro-curling sentiment that is currently trending in our country stems from people thinking they're being contrarian by claiming they enjoy watching a 'sport' that's less exciting than checkers. I also believe that the vast majority of people who claim to enjoy watching curling simply aren't watching it. Flipping to a curling 'match' (I honestly don't know if that's what they're called) and watching it for a few moments does not constitute "watching" it. If you watch 3 minutes of a movie you can't claim that you've seen the movie and this logic also holds true for sports. I feel confident in my assertion that these bandwagon curling fans aren't actually watching because if you actually had to sit through an entire curling match there is no way that you could genuinely say you enjoyed it - hence this post. I'll admit that I, too, have claimed to like curling in the past because I thought I was being funny and clever, but then I actually watched it.

I flipped to curling last Sunday afternoon hoping to try and figure out what all the buzz was about, to justify how it could be considered an Olympic sport, and to verify whether or not Olympic curlers were actually athletes. I literally fell asleep 10-12 minutes after turning it on - which is fine, I usually fall asleep when I watch golf too, so a little white noise in the background of my nap didn't dock any points - but just as I dozed off I was awoken by ear splitting shrieks from a Chinese woman barking orders at her partner. The blood curdling sound resembled something you'd encounter in Dante's Inferno, and forced me to jump off my couch in a moment of panic and fear. Once I regained my composure, I came to the realization that Curling is literally the worst 'sport' I have ever seen on television. It tip toes the narrow line between being too dull to actually watch and too loud and annoying to have on in the background during a nap - it has achieved the unique and rare status of being thoroughly unwatchable in any capacity.

But what's made this faux fandom epidemic so insufferable has been NBC's apparent pro curling agenda. The network has shamelessly shoved curling coverage down viewers’ throats, to the point where I don't understand how there could possibly be so many matches at all hours of the day. It feels like whenever you turn on the Olympics curling is on. Then, when you try to navigate their app to find something (anything) else you are inevitably steered back to a different curling match. In a nightmarish recent attempt at watching the Olympics, I tried to tune into short track speed skating (a very underrated event that deserves far more publicity and coverage) and not only could I not find live coverage anywhere, but even on the app I was only offered the tantalizing preliminary match-up between Sweden and Japan's women's curling teams. 

I'm not sure how the curling lobby has risen to such prominence but NBC and the IOC need to gain some semblance of a backbone and nip this in the bud. Not only should there be literally zero TV coverage of it, but curling should be removed from the Olympics and downgraded from 'sport' to 'game' or more accurately, 'hobby.'