Sports Anyone?

I was asked by a dear friend [who mostly wanted to get me in trouble] to compare the sport of Curling with Bowling. He posed this challenge deliberately because of my absence of interest in sports, but also because of my Canadian background. I have to be careful because I am already a black sheep among my Canadian family so I had to think about it for a while.

I decided that the safest way to play this was from the perspective of ignorance which is easy for me as I have no interest [or real knowledge] of sports in general. So I will objectively look at the sports and compare them [and other sports] at face value. Easy enough…but I can’t help myself…here goes.

I looked up some statistics about the respective sports and surprisingly there was way more information available about bowling than curling. I think part of that has to do with in the construct of social government curling is a secret requirement of the Canadian government and therefore statistics are classified. With recent events in US government and the outcries of “right” minded peoples accusing us of heading toward socialism…bowling could become a classified statistic as well.

Curling at face value is an odd abstract between bowling, darts, shuffle board…and house cleaning. Curling is a team sport. There is the lead who slides the stone [a granite stone weighing approximately 44 lbs.], the second, third and “skip”. The lead slides the stone on an ice lane to the target. The other members have brooms (thus the house cleaning analogy) to adjust the ice surface to speed up, slow down or change the direction of the stone. Based on where all of the stones land in the target area each team accumulates points and the most points win. Simple? Sure! The caveat is that curling is a popular Canadian sport played on ice…surprise! As an aside, I am guessing that the folks who use the brooms (the second and third) can sweep out a garage in no time flat!?!

Bowling on the other hand regardless of its origin is purely American. The population of registered bowlers in the state of Ohio alone equals 10% of the total population of All of Canada. It too is an odd sport, but again purely American. One takes a large round object; rolls it at other objects with the goal being to simply knock stuff over. I can’t help but think that bowling is a metaphor for so many things in our society. “When all else fails…knock it down”.

I played on a bowling league many years ago…and let me remind you I couldn’t care less about sports. I was asked by a friend to join his team because “We need a lousy player to keep our team average down, so we can kill in the playoffs." Glad to oblige…I was a lousy bowler. The team came in second place that season and we got a trophy. When it came to individual accomplishments like high game, high series, high average, etc. I got a plaque for “perfect attendance”. I still have it. To this day I believe that if I had two people with brooms guiding my ball down the alley, I would have done MUCH better.

 To take the whole sports comparison thing further…let’s look at golf. The first time I ever played golf on a real course was at a country club in rural Ontario. When you think of “Country Clubs”, you think Oakland Hills, Augusta, Pebble Beach, etc. No…this was in rural Ontario. The vision of pristine courses surrounded by upscale homes or pristine vistas of the ocean side coast…no…this course was flanked on three sides by corn fields! Talk about your deep rough! I will say that I played golf for another 15 years after that day, but put my clubs away 6 years ago for reasons I’ll explain another time and haven’t even dusted them off since then.

 You have to imagine the game of golf in a remote rural area of Canada. There was livestock grazing on every fairway, on the ninth tee, you had to traverse a grain silo to get to the fairway, and there were goalies on every green guarding the cup…okay, I lied.

I had NO experience with golf other than a single trip to a driving range with my cousin, and Putt-Putt as a teenager. My cousin arranged a foursome for a round of golf that included me?!? When we arrived at the club, Ken introduced me to his two friends. One of them said, “Nice to meet you…what’s your handicap?” I looked puzzled and responded “Pardon me?” He repeated, “Golf! What’s your handicap?” I replied”Oh…golf…me…I’m my handicap!”

We teed off at the first hole. I was last which was probably a good idea. I stood at the tee, remembering all the crap my cousin told me to remember before I struck the ball. Shoulders square, eyes on the ball, relaxed grip, left elbow straight, rotate on your left foot…pick up a gallon of milk on the way home, hit the ball! I teed off. I shanked the ball which went airborne at a 90 degree angle from me landing on the 18th (yes 18th) green about 2 feet from the hole. I looked at the ground, my tee, my club, my cousin and then the ball sitting 2 feet from the 18th cup. What the heck! I grabbed my putter, walked over to the 18th green and tapped my ball in. I looked up and called to my cousin, and I knew I didn't want to go through that 17 more times that day. I said, “I’ll drive the cart…you golf!” When we got back to the clubhouse several hours later, there was a blackboard posting the day’s scores. My cousin walked up to the board and posted my score as a new course record at “70 under par”.

And lastly, let’s take a look at football. US football…4 downs, 100 yards…Canadian football, 3 downs, 105 yards? I think that Canada’s conversion to the metric system screwed up their game! In either case, I also think it would be far more interesting if in either country football were played on ice :).

As an endnote, curling, bowling and golf all originated in Scotland...along with looting and pillaging...which are no longer sanctioned sports.


I’m just saying!