Something about Curling Athletes
Something else just occurred to me as I'm watching the 2010 Tim Hortons Brier.
Curling athletes, unlike those in baseball, football, and hockey, don't spit. At least I've never seen one spit, not on tv, not live at a major event, and not at the local club.
Labels: spitting
posted by EclectEcon @ 7:41:00 p.m.
4 comments
4 Comments:
Knowing a few icemakers, I'd guess that spitting while curling would result in the offending curler's broom being unceremoniously shoved into a place it was never meant to occupy.
But still, that's a good counter to the beerin', smokin' image that still gets brought up. (Something else I've never actually seen, although I do grant I'm newer to the sport.)
That probably also helps explain why I don't see NBA players spitting.
As for smoking, I know that at the club level, pre-1970s, people did indeed smoke while curling. But for the life of me I can't figure out what happened with the ashes and butts. I figure they'd leave a cigarette in an ashtray while throwing or sweeping, but it still boggles the mind.
And yet I've seen photos of guys sweeping with cigarettes in their mouths. Weird, eh?
I guess that, before ice prep and stone making were truly as consistent as they are today, a few ashes on the ice weren't as big of a deal. Certainly it wasn't the social no-no that it is today.
And hey, if you needed to slow a stone down, you could always shake some ashes off the cigarette...
I don't know, Hooper. Just a little fleck of something can really bugger up the line of rock and send it way off line. I'd think a bit of ash could really mess things up.
I confess, though, to wishing somehow that droplets of perspiration might sometimes fall in front of a rock that is too heavy.
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