Curling

@Ceili,

Oh, wait, I read some more...
It's Bacci on ice?
Bacci... that's those colorful balls that you throw, and try to get as close to the small white ball, am I correct?

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@hawkeye10,

Never, at least not in Canada! ha ha
Bonspiels are a blast. If you ever get the chance, sign up. You'll not regret it.

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@RadAndRandom,

Yes, but as our Italophile pointed out, I spelled it phonetically - it's bocce.

1 Reply

@RadAndRandom,

No, it's more like shuffle board, but you're on the ice, slippery at best...the ice may or may not curl and if you shoot it too far, the rock is out of play, if you shoot too lightly, your team has to sweep like mad. The rock could catch a bit of dust and slide off course, or you could be spot on and knock your competitors rock out or further into contention. Nail biters are common...

1 Reply

@Rockhead,

What's a dry lane? Not varnished?

Many years ago and far away, I went bowling with my father and his crew in a bowling alley in Omaha that had just opened. I bowled a near perfect score, messing up the last (what, roll of the ball?) and crunching my thumb. A miracle score, given my previous prowess. On the other hand, no one else did that. I figured it was the lane, and they probably fixed that the next morning.

Not that bowling is a sport..

1 Reply

@ossobuco,

the oiling of the lanes is it's own art, to hear it told by the guys that do it.

the ball has to be able to spin on the lane...

(somebody get me a beer)

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@Rockhead,

Aha, makes sense.

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@tsarstepan,

tsarstepan wrote:

I get the basic physics of changing the sweeping the ice ... I don't get it in terms that it should be considered as participating in a sport.

The IOC currently recognizes Chess as a sport, even though it's not included in the Olympic Games.

1 Reply

@littlek,

littlek wrote:

The scientific jury was still out (according to what I read) about the significance of sweeping (or whether it does anything for the speed or direction of the stone). There was some theory about it melting the ice and causing a smoother slipping on a film of liquid water. But, speculating scientists think this doesn't make a difference.

And yet something makes the path of the stone "curl" visibly.

I guess in order to do a proper experiment, we would have to watch a bunch of throws without any sweeping to see if the path curls anyway.

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@rosborne979,

I see it as mental sport personified, but..

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@ossobuco,

ossobuco wrote:

I see it as mental sport personified, but..

I see the Olympics as a chance to get the whole world together to play games. So I don't care what they play.

They should include everything that anyone wants to play, and then they should create bazillions of Internet TV links so we can watch what we want to watch.

They can even track the most watched game/sport and give it the Gold Medal for "Most Watched Olympic Game".

1 Reply

@rosborne979,

Well, that's a progressive point of view. Ok.

A tangent, but not so much, as part of my love for piazzas is the rivalries that have taken place in them, with orange hurling in Ivrea, the whole palio thing in Siena and some other cities, the saracen thing in Arezzo, in place for years in piazzas that have seen real bloodshed. I do usually see sports as a leveler, at the same time fans from various places go nuts from time to time.

I long posited that a little orange hurling in Los Angeles (lots of orange groves) might have stymied some of the early gang growth. Fanciful idea.

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@littlek,

Oooh, I thought there was an "O"in there.. Just didn't remember the "I."

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@Ceili,

Ooooh. It sounds like a game.. that bored children play in the winter.
No offense, but it doesn't sound like a sport to me either.

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@ossobuco,

If I didn't like drinking orange juice so much and if I didn't have the puritanical streak of considering wasting food to be a near mortal sin, I'd just might find orange hurling to be a fine sport to get into.

So do women play in grapefruit hurling leagues while men play in the orange hurling leagues? Or is there no gender segregation in this progressive sport? Razz

1 Reply

@tsarstepan,

When I was researching all this stuff, I was looking in libraries - did go to ivrea. I'm sure there's more online now. There have been good articles since I was interested, and some good photos, perhaps a NYT slide show on it. Piazza full of massacred oranges/juice (probably in Bell'italia magazine), people with fierce masks (orange hurling can hurt). I don't remember any photos of women in action.

Well, I'm veering from thread subject. Back to curling.

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@RadAndRandom,

'I' would make a noun ending in 'e' plural.

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@RadAndRandom,

It's all good. I can't stand football, a game of inches... but it's a religious experience, apparently, when I travel. It's all most people can speak of, and there is NASCAR - I don't get that either, but each to his own i guess..

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

He said if a pregnant woman can play (which was what he said was happening) it doesn't count as a sport.

Canadian women regularly play full contact hockey until they are dragged off the ice to deliver.

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@Ceili,

Ceili wrote:

I like curling because it's definitive, not like most figure skating or snow boarding standards. You know who wins. Points, not artistic merit.

I don't want any of the judged competitions in the Olympics either. I guess I really just want to toss out 50% of the sports huh?

1 Reply

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