Curling, Sport of Dorks, Goes After X-Gamers

WAYLAND, MASS.   After the Beijing Winter Games drew the lowest ratings in the history of the Olympics, sports media analysts say the time has come for a reckoning.  “Hard as it is to believe,” says Todd Makrontz of Inside TV, “Americans may have reached the saturation point in their appetite for Scotch mixed doubles luge.”

Image result for luge

To add insult to injury, the viewers that NBC drew tended to be the least desirable; senior citizens who are more likely to buy denture adhesives than new cars or other big-ticket consumer goods.  “You don’t buy a new suit for grandpa when you put him in his casket,” Makrontz says.  Desperate to attract younger viewers as they head into negotiations for the broadcast of the next winter games, the United States Curling Association today announced it would recognize “Extreme Curling” as a bona fide variant of the game that most Americans watch only once every four years, if at all.


“Awesome, dude–you just wiped out a +55 retirement village!”

“We need the critical 15-25 year-old slacker dude demographic if we’re ever going to get on ESPN during waking hours,” noted USCA Commissioner Eldridge “Chub” Berry.  “Otherwise we’ll be stuck forever in infomercial time slots.  There’s no way we can compete against the excitement of the Ab Blaster and Kitchen Magician.”


Curling fever–catch it!

Curling, a form of Arctic bocce, was invented in Scotland but is today dominated by Canadians.  Teams consist of four players: a “lead,” a “second,” a “third” or “vice-skip” and the “skip.”  The game is relatively safe; most injuries involve scratches to the head that participants suffer when they bump into each other’s quotation marks.

In normal curling, players push a 42-pound granite stone down an ice surface towards the “house,” a circle with a diameter of 12 feet.  Two dorky sweepers use brooms to control the stone’s momentum and direction.  The team that succeeds in placing its stone closest to the center of the “house” wins.


“Faster–the stone is gaining on you!”

In Extreme Curling, players push a two-ton stone down a hill, hoping to hit real houses.  “It’s much more exciting because it involves the possible loss of innocent lives,” said long-time curling “color” man Monty Balsbaugh.  “It’s like comparing NASCAR to heel-and-toe race walking.”

The extreme version of the game has been designated as a demonstration sport for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy and curling enthusiasts hope that it will receive full status for the 2030 games.  “We’ve budgeted $100,000 to spend over the next four years on public relations,” says Berry.  “Some of that will fund youth instructional leagues, but the lion’s share will go to prostitutes for International Olympic Committee judges.”

Available in Kindle format on amazon.com as part of the collection “This Just In–From Gerbil Sports Network.”

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