Winter Olympics preview: Curling

History

The brooms are back.

For those of us who aren’t hardcore curlers, (1) I’m not mad, just disappointed, and (2) there’s a ton of debriefing to get out of the way. But perhaps we wouldn’t have to do this every four years had curling not suffered a 70-year Olympic absence. (This is why the 20th century is widely regarded as “The Dark Ages” in history books.) The first Olympic curling was a men’s only competition in 1924, with three countries participating. It was dumped from the docket after being a demonstration sport in 1932, then returned in 1988 and ‘92 (men’s and women’s) as a demo before reclassifying as a medal sport in ‘98. As expected, Canada is the only sport to medal in every recent Olympiad, while Sweden, Scotland, Switzerland, Great Britain and Norway are other countries to earn multiple medals.

Those same countries should be favored this year, which will be played in Sochi’s Ice Cube Curling Center. The facility, built in 2012 for the sole purpose of sliding the stones, is billed as "moveable," so they could deconstruct and transport it somewhere else and spread the curling gospel around the country. (If Vladimir Putin is smart he’ll relocate it to his backyard and throw sexy curling spiels.) With the building seating 3,000, they shouldn’t have an issue filling it with curling zealots or morbidly curious sports watchers.

Six Names to Remember

So who are these folks? There are some familiar names (mostly the European countries) but many fresh faces from the North American teams. Here are a handful to watch:

Sweden skip Niklas Edin - One of the most romantic parts about Olympic curling is even the best curlers chase this dream while securing day jobs like the rest of us working stiffs. But Edin is living the dream with his team, as they curl full time backed by sponsorship. They are the defending world champions, but haven’t played like worldbeaters for the last few months. Edin is one of the returning skips from 2010, losing out on hardware with a 5-4 defeat to Switzerland in the bronze game. But in that match he did execute the rare quadruple takeout:

Another neat note on Edin’s team: their coach is two-time gold medalist Eva Lund. You don’t see many women coach men.

Canada lead/second Ryan and E.J. Harnden - Anyone still subscribing to the concept of curling as a non-athletic sport best watch the Harnden brothers as they pound the ice during the most crucial stones of the game. Brad Jacobs is the skip that will receive all the credit/blame, and vice-skip Ryan Fry is making more shots than anyone on the planet right now, but don’t forget about the 400 pounds of Canadian beef scrubbing their stones to perfection.

Canada skip Jennifer Jones - I can’t calculate how many times I watched this shot when it happened in 2005. But the video has over a million views, and half are probably me. When a shot gets that much Internet traction, it’s special. That was nine years ago, and while her team has rarely experienced an off-year (never worse than third at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, Canada’s women’s championship), this is her first Olympics. That’s how tough it is to qualify out of Canada. It’s her “turn” now, and while she may not need an in-off takeout shot for four points to win gold, her excellent shotmaking and playcalling will likely put her in the medal rounds. She had a child with boyfriend Brent Laing, another former world champion curler, in 2012, and their baby is already favored to win gold in the 2044 games.

United States vice-skip Debbie McCormick - Born in Canada, she moved with her parents to Wisconsin at an early age, which indirectly turned out to be fortuitous for for USA curling. The two-time Olympian and one-time world champion skip is now the vice for a veteran-laden team which has a very real chance to bring home the country’s first women’s curling medal. If you curl somewhere in the states, you also may have seen her day job outside your club, as she makes her living by selling curling supplies through her mobile store. How awesome is that? Imagine Mike Trout peddling baseball gloves at local park diamonds during the offseason, which is something he should certainly do now that I thought of it.

Great Britain skip Eve Muirhead - The Scottish skip made her Olympic debut as a 19-year-old in Vancouver and her greenness was on full display, but as the head of the 2013 world champion from Scotland, she is already being branded as The Next Big Curling Star and should be around for plenty more years. She is also an accomplished golfer (which many curlers are) and a skilled bagpiper (which most are not). Plus, she also looks, you know … nice.

Three Terms You Need to Know

Those are some of the names. Which brings us to all that curling jargon, which almost feels like its own language. Print out a copy of this Wikipedia glossary reference it religiously during matches. But here are some key concepts to know:

1. Weight calls - You may hear sweepers (the English-speaking ones at least) blurt out numbers after a rock is thrown, from 1 to 10. A “1” is just over the hogline (the solid blue line which the stone must cross to be in play), and “10” is the back of the “house” (the scoring area). Here’s a cool chart. 

Hit attempts have different classifications too, such as hack, board, control, normal, firm, and peel. Some teams, such as the USA women, use numbers for takeouts as well (i.e. 8, 8.5, 10.5), based on interval times for the stone to glide from one hogline to the other, meaning that smaller numbers are heavier/faster takeouts.

Why do this? Communication of the weight is important for the skip, who is judging the stone’s trajectory, to understand how much the stone will curl, and whether to call for sweeping.

2. Free Guard Zone - During the first four stones of the end, any stones in front of the house (“guards”) cannot be removed by the opponent. If this happens, it is a violation and the stones are reset to their original locations. But they can be pushed around in the playing area. In later ends, teams with a lead will try to attempt this with a super-careful “tick” shot. These shots are hard as hell and if the lead makes them, it could be game over.

3. Percentages - You may see that someone is curling at “86 percent.” The heck? Each stone thrown is scored by an official out of a possible four points. As a rule of thumb:

0 points: that was a disaster

1 point: not good, but better than nothing

2 or 3 points: good enough

4 points: perfect

5 points: an incredibly difficult shot made perfectly (rarely given)

6 points: an incredibly difficult shot made perfectly, and it was the last stone of the game for the win

The points aren’t entirely based on good/bad outcomes, but rather what the skip wanted the result to be. In that sense, percentages can be misleading, but an average Olympic curling day is around 75 percent, kind of like NBA free throws -- which works out because they both have similar mental components. Leads and seconds have “simpler” shots so productive games for them track somewhere in the 80s. But don’t read too much into them -- if a skip is curling at 60 or 70 percent, it could mean they played poorly, or he or she had very difficult shots and tried to bail out the team.

* * *

The 10 teams all play each other in a round-robin format, which equates to nine games in eight days. The top four teams advance to a seeded playoff. Ties are broken with a full game. There hasn’t been a tiebreak in Olympic curling -- men’s or women’s -- since 2002, when three women’s teams played two games for the fourth seed. Great Britain had to play both tiebreaker games, which they won, and proceeded to capture the gold.

Never bet on curling, because what’s wrong with you? But if you must wager an office bet, let’s go with these podium finishes:

Most Likely to Podium

MEN

Gold: Canada - Nobody goes through the Canadian trials undefeated without being the favorite. Anything short of silver will be branded as a disaster, but Jacobs’ team has been playing lights out for the last two years.

Silver: Norway - What a boring man I am, picking a rematch from the 2010 gold medal match. Trust in Thomas Ulsrud and his brotherhood of traveling pants (http://instagram.com/p/jb1we6GPUb/) to medal.

Bronze: Switzerland - This medal is wide open. I could put four or five teams here. I’ll take the Swiss and another young skip on the rise, as Sven Michel’s team won the European title in December. Let’s say they beat Great Britain in the third-place game.  The only surprise contender here would be USA, Germany or Russia.

WOMEN

Gold: Great Britain - If Muirhead has her way, we could be in for another 20 years of Scottish rule. If we’re all forced to speak in their accent, it wouldn’t be so bad.

Silver: Canada - I cannot write a respectable curling preview and leave Canada off the podium.

Bronze: Sweden - I’ve never heard of a team’s skip throwing lead stones. But that’s what Margaretha Sigfridsson does. Maria Prytz, a terrific shotmaker (especially on upweight shots), throws fourth. Recently they’ve taken two world championship runner-up spots and also a European title, so I like them to medal as well. Denmark, Switzerland, China, or the USA could very well qualify for this game too.