What Exactly Is Curling?

Ah, curling. I got hooked in 2006. From your post, it sounds like I might have missed it this time, tho

It was originally a Canadian drunkenness test. Basically if you could walk on the ice with or without the aid of a broom, you were considered okay to drive.

They tend to hide all the beer bottles and cigarettes for the televised variation, but usually, it's like bowling on ice. In reference to the amount of drinking and smoking involved, that is.
From a more technical perspective, it's more like drunken shuffleboard on ice.

+1 to the above comment of drunken shuffleboard. Up here in our country, every single small town has a hockey rink, and most of the have a curling house as well.hockey for when you aren't drunk, curling for when you are!

Its crazy to me, as a Canadian to imagine not knowing what curling is! Makes me wonder what you have that I haven't heard of.

Another thing that I recently learned was a Canadian thing -- five pin bowling!

I never knew what curling was until I heard the Jonathan Coulton song “Curl.”

Also, Stephen Colbert tried out for the US Olympic curling team, so it HAS to be awesome.

is it just me, or does the above curler look like Seth Rogen?

I thought it was some of those crazy things like throwing cell phones or cheese rolling down some hill... but a sport? really?

I always wondered: How the crap do you ever get into a sport like this? Wake up one day and decide you're going to start curling?

I have a classmate who is on a provincial curling team lol! We had to do curling in gym in high school too. It surprises me when people don't know what it is.

I'm a bad, bad Canadian. I just tried curling two weeks ago and I'm 37 years old. As the above comments illustrate, we like to joke that curling is the only Olympic sport that a group of fat beer swilling smokers can win gold. I have to say, it's deceptively physical. Notice the guys in the picture are wearing short sleeves, you get hot, it's a real workout. And as far as skill, mix the strategy of chess with the steady ability of target shooting or billiards and you have curling. It was good fun.

And we drank beer.

It is pretty weird to think that most americans have no idea what curling is. I live in Edmonton Alberta, and I have 4 curling houses within a 20 minute walk of my house! As for how people get into curling, it's a cultural thing up here. Most all of us take it during school. In alot of towns, it serves as a sort of multigenerational link as well, being one of the few things that you can compete with your grandparents in!

Wow...ignorant Americans...

Curling is a great spectator sport!
(I'm American)

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CURLING IS THE ESSENCE OF LIFE ITSELF! NEED I SAY MORE!

The bluejacket man in the picture is Markku Uusipaavalniemi, and he was elected in to the finnish parliament mostly due his Curling fame.

+1 for using a picture of the Finnish curling team

haha Was I the only one who saw the Simpsons this past weekend?
Marge and Homer make the American curling team. It was actually pretty hilarious.
Or when Stephen Colbert tried out for the curling team.
hahahaha I didn't know what it was before this year but for some reason popular culture was obsessed with it.

Arwin3 "Its crazy to me, as a Canadian to imagine not knowing what curling is! Makes me wonder what you have that I haven't heard of."

That's the way I felt when Alex posted about kudzu, which is common as rocks where I'm from.
http://www.neatorama.com/2008/04/17/houses-covered-in-kudzu/

We had to go curling in junior high and high school, it was basically one of the only things to do in my town besides hockey. I liked it, but I was always terrible at it until last year, 5 years out of high school, I went curling with people from work for Curl For Cancer to raise money, the object was to intentionally lose because the winning team buys the losing team beer. I effed up and lead our team to a sad victory. I did not get free beer.

I saw that Simpsons episode, and it epitomized everything that's wrong with the Simpsons these days. And Stephen Colbert is still topical?

Curling is like intense shuffleboard. I've never played it, but I knew a guy who did. It's not that easy.

Curling is a Scottish invention.

basically it is Crown Green Bowling on ice.

If you come from a very hilly place the ice on a loch (lake if you like) tends to be the only naturally occurring flat area.

I'm a Scot and we learned curling at school in gym class.

I was not a fan as a kid but as with CGB you begin to see the appeal as you get a bit longer in the tooth.

I now live in Australia and would love to go curling, if for the chilly atmosphere if nothing else.