Curling - It's a Minnesota and an Olympic Thing

Curling is a strange sport. People pushing smooth rocks across a sheet of ice to push the rocks of their competitors out of the bull's eye. It's not a quick sport, and not an immediately understandable sport, but it's a Minnesota sport and a Scandinavian sport. To do curling you must have ice, and the Duluth area of Minnesota, in the upper part of the state next to Lake Superior, has a LOT of ice. 

Duluth, Minnesota, sits next to the far Western part of 
Lake Superior in the far North of the state. It gets REALLY 
cold and gets a LOT of snow, and having a sport that is 
ice related makes sense. We have curling clubs all over 
the Minnesota area, but the Duluth club is considered one 
of the best. 

So, since we have a lot of ice, we do curling. There are curling clubs and venues throughout the state, but the club in Duluth is considered the best, and they're doing marvelously in the Olympics. We're going to the Gold Medal round now in mixed doubles, and I'm so very pleased! Thus, I'm running a bit late today - I stayed up to watch the match last night and got moving a bit slowly this morning. Still, it's a swimming day, so I have to be in the car in a bit more than 20 minutes. 

I'm giving you an extra large photo today so that you can take a look at 
what curling is all about. Is it a sport? Well, it's not a sweat fest like 
skiing or flash like skating, but it's quiet skills appeal to me as a resident 
of Minnesota. 

The Olympics in general have been absolutely fantastic thus far. I adore the Winter Olympics - even though I despise the cold and I'm not a great fan of snow (especially when I have to shovel it). Still, I live in a land of ice and snow up here in the Frozen Northlands, and even though I don't have the skiing mountains of my youth, there's plenty of ice to keep me occupied. The figure skaters take all the bling and audiences, but there's just something about curling that really appeals to me. And now we're actually going for the gold. Yeah - Minnesota's Duluth Curling Club did well in their choice of team to send to the Olympics. 

The Duluth Curling Club is a large structure with at least 
seven different lanes for curling. That's a lot of real 
estate, a lot of heating bills, and a large membership. 
People interested in the sport who are very good at it, 
come from all over to play here, and the Olympic teams 
are generally chosen from the membership here. 

So, since I'm running late, I'm wrapping this up and heading to the swimming pool. No frozen sheets of ice for me today, liquid water only! LOL Have an excellent Tuesday and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini.