The Hurry-Hard Olympics return with stones, scandals, sanity

Curling is the only Olympic sport where four grown adults dressed (historically speaking) like substitute math teachers can spend two hours screaming at a rock and still be considered elite athletes.

And before you scoff, understand this. That round rock, milled to microscopic precision, costs more than your first car. It is carved from rare Scottish granite that is roughly 60 million years old, which means it predates the invention of cheese curds, beer, and cigarettes, all of which (historically speaking) have been important accoutrements to the game.

The rock is called the “stone.”

Yet here we are in the Year of Our Lord 2026 watching lean, athletic Canadians yell “HURRY HARD” like the fate of Western civilization depends on whether a stone kisses the button or dies lonely on the outskirts of the house.

Surely, you’re aware that The Olympics are back. Fully back. NBC reports 26.5 million daily viewers, a 93% increase over the 2022 Beijing Games. And curling is a consistent high-profile event.

Curling is also a high-profile event in the VanNoppen house. For the past two weeks whenever The Beloved has walked into the room, curling is on the flatscreen.

She’s not a fan. “That IS NOT a sport,” she says. “If they’re athletes, then I’m an Olympic vacuum operator.”

The Olympics are fun again. Even though the few scandals have gotten delightfully stupid.

We are no longer talking about shadowy doping labs. We’re talking about the Very Serious curling infraction called, “double-touching.”

It sounds like a Spring Break misdemeanor at Miami Beach. In curling, a double-touch is a forbidden fingertip graze of the stone after release. Touch it past the green Hog Line and you might as well throw in the towel and go get a beer. Very illegal. Highly disgraceful. Grounds for disqualification.

The Hog Line is not the barrier between funnel cakes and livestock judging at the Burke County Fair. The term actually comes from old Scottish usage. In Scots dialect, “hog” referred to a young sheep, especially one in its first year.

Why young sheep entered into it is for you to ponder.

If your 44-pound, 60-million-year-old Scottish stone does not cross the far Hog Line, it is expelled immediately.

Sweden’s curling team accused Canada of doing it, Double Touching, that is. Video replays appeared to support the violation. The Canada curler, Marc Kennedy, responded with a two-word phrase that will not be printed here but was echoed throughout Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium where the spicy expletive was picked up by the hot mics.

An international incident escalated. World Curling issued a statement about the sacred hog line. It made the news everywhere (even here!). “Double trouble as Canadian curlers accused of illegal touches” was an Associated Press headline.

Meanwhile, the Livigno Aerials & Moguls and Snow parks showcased the fearless and free-spirited skiers and snowboarders. It was there that we learned about what historians will one day call the Olympic Penisgate.

Super Ski Jumpers, already considered unGodly-out-of-their-minds insane for their aeronautical career choice, achieved suspicious new levels of “hang time” sparking speculation of whether certain anatomical enhancements down low were aiding flight.

This news made headlines, too. The Guardian: “Penisgate at the Olympics: why inject acid into your penis, and what are the health risks?” USA Today: “Top plastic surgeon fuels ‘Penisgate,’ says he injected ski jumper last month”.

You will never hear a curling commentator say, “And Bob’s lower torso has really given him a lift advantage from the hack.”

(I know you’ll ask so I’ll answer: The hack itself is named after the footholds those damn Scot farmers cut into frozen ground to brace themselves while throwing stones on lochs.)

Except for the occasional double touch, curlers are clean-living, God-fearing, early-to-bed, up-at-six, people who treat a good night’s sleep like it’s a competitive advantage.

While curlers sleep and recover, the wild-and-woolly, free-wheeling, single, 20-something, ready-and-randy snowboarding and freestyle skiing maniacs snatched up all of the 10,000 free condoms made available by Olympic committees. They were gone in the first week.

Are you surprised? I’m not surprised. Those lunatics are colorful cannonballs of hormones and youth in the absolute prime of their lives. No one is safe. Not even those young sheep at the Hog Lines.

Curlers are mature, sensible athletes. Engaged. Married. Serious people, approaching a serious sport seriously. Curlers are not having Olympic Village hookups. Curlers are hydrating.

The only more unGodly out-of-your-mind Olympic sport than Super Ski Jumping is the sport VERY APPROPRIATELY named Skeleton.

The skeleton racer arrives wearing what appears to be a skintight, superhero wetsuit and the expression of someone who has made peace with the afterlife.

The curler arrives at the venue in pressed fleece. Possibly with a ham sandwich and sliced apple in a lunchbox. He has a mortgage.

Skeleton racers leap into their frictionless sled no bigger than a pillow and hurl themselves at warp speed down an ice track shaped like a question mark designed by a lunatic. Their hands are pinned at their sides, helmeted faces inches from the ice, rocketing at speeds that surpass those of the squadrons of camera drones.

Meanwhile, back at the curling rink, four calm adult teammates stand composed during the heat of battle and debate Hog Line tactical strategies with the emotional intensity of a Rotarian selling tickets to the annual pancake breakfast.

It’s a contrast of attitudes alright. You chose: Sane and sensible people who look like they’re about to argue with the Home Depot manager, or insane, wild-eyed maniacs catapulting headfirst down a damn-near mile-long ice chute?

Tell me that’s not drama.