The Epic Battle for Top Sport

Written by Worm on February 15, 2006

So I happen to be around the house during the daytime these past few days, and I know the Olympics are going on in Italy. Well, in the absence of baseball, this means daytime sports. Thank god for the Ancient Greeks, right?

Looking through my TV programming, I’ve noticed, however, that daytime coverage seems to be mostly limited to one of two major Olympic sports, namely hockey and everybody’s favorite, curling. These sports are really very similar. Both involve propelling a flat object down a sheet of ice towards a target. Well, okay, that’s the end of the similarity. Oh yeah, they’re played by men and women. No horses or robots are allowed to participate.

This raises the obvious question: Which is the awesomest sport on daytime TV right now, hockey or curling? Let me try and break this down for you.

Hockey

Pros: It’s blisteringly fast paced, and it resembles a number of other popular sports in its design: soccer, basketball, a little bit like football, lacrosse, um, field hockey. Not tennis, though. Also, any game where the players have to wear protective equipment must be cool to some degree, right?

Furthermore, it’s being played by professional players from teams in cities near you. Not only can you root for your country, but you can root vicariously through other countries if they have one of your local team’s players playing for them.

Cons: No fighting. Part of the suspense of a hockey game is guessing when teeth and blood are going to start flying on the ice. That doesn’t seem to happen in the Olympics.

My other sometimes-complaint about hockey is that it is such a fast game that it is really near the margin of human control. The puck is often flying around, contested by both teams, and it becomes hard to organize much offense except for brief moments within a game. Indeed, that makes it a sport of amazing skill and concentration, but it also makes it a sport of 1-0 and 2-1 games, where chance can sometimes play too much of a role in the outcome.

Also, the clock is counting in the wrong damn direction.

Curling

Pros: One of the few Olympic sports where strategy plays a dominant role, this is a thinking fan’s game. It still takes skill, (although not so much athleticism,) and some of the shots these players pull off are a beautiful thing to watch. Also, the skip of the American women’s team is hot.

Cons: The broadcast edits out much of the competition. For those of us who want to watch every stone of all ten ends, there’s no choice but to buy a plane ticket to Italy. And I thought they were supposed to use brooms in this sport. Those things don’t look like brooms, they look like feakin squeegees. Not cool.

It was also pointed out to me last night that the TV broadcast hasn’t done a proper job of miking the playing area. The ice the curling stones are traveling over is rough, not smooth, so when a stone is being thrown there’s a loud rumbling sound that accompanies it. On the daytime broadcasts, not so much. If you want the authentic curling experience, I recommend you get yourself to your local curling rink. And fear not, you can watch all the action from the heated bar room that overlooks the ice.

Conclusion

Curling, obviously. But feel free to continue the debate in the comments below.

-- Written by Worm on February 15, 2006