BY ANDREW KRUSZKA, STAFF WRITER
I always find myself wondering what to write in my articles every week. There are some weeks where I truly ponder for a long time on what to write about, but other times an idea pops right into my head. After doing this, I realized that this is the opinion section, and you can essentially have an opinion about literally anything.
This week’s opinion is based on a sport that most Americans probably had little to no knowledge about; curling. Well, at least this statement holds true. The 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics in South Korea was where the men’s curling team, led by skip John Shuster, won the first-ever gold medal in U.S. history.
That’s right! For all of you curling lovers, no Canada did not come home with another curling gold in 2018. The U.S. did. After the team started with only two wins and four losses in Pyeongchang, they faced an elimination game against Canada, the curling God’s, it seems like.
I’m here today to tell my loyal readers that the United States, under Team Shuster, did not lose another game in the Olympics after that. They went on to beat Canada, Switzerland and Great Britain in elimination games to move on to the semifinals. They defeated Canada again, and then with a magnificent eighth end where Shuster put the team up by five against Sweden in the gold medal game, the U.S. won their first-ever gold medal in curling.
Now, you’re probably wondering, why am I spending my “valuable” time writing about this sport that, again, no one really cared about until 2018. Then, it’s probably forgotten about.
The Olympics are back! Yes, they’re in China which people are controversial about, but put your politics aside and watch them. I hope that you put curling on your television because John Shuster is back! He’s back representing team U.S.A. and is looking to defend his gold medal with his team of John Landsteiner (lead), Matt Hamilton, and Chris Plys.
It might be hard to get into at first, and no, it’s not the normal sports in the winter Olympics that everyone knows about and watches like figure skating, hockey, and skiing. I’m also not telling you that you shouldn’t watch those. Go ahead, I for sure do. These games are only once every four years for a two-week span. What I am saying is to give curling a try.
It’s four players on each team that throw two rocks each. Each player has a brush in their hands that helps groom the ice when the rock is thrown, getting it to either go faster, curl more or less, depending on which way and how hard they sweep. In general, the rules are pretty simple besides that. Think of it like a game of bocce ball where you want your rock to be the closest in the circle. After that, you want your other rocks to be the next closest in order to receive points. You play ten ends which are considered like innings in baseball. Each team gets to throw a total of 20 times if the game goes ten ends, and doesn’t need extras.
Overall, team Shuster is hitting the ice this week and next week so go on to Peacock or whatever streaming service you can get the Olympics on and give curling a try. If you don’t like it, the least you can say is, you gave it a try. With that, I’ll say this, Go Team U.S.A. make us proud, and most importantly, be safe!
