For as long as sports have been televised, one of humanity’s truest traditions has been to watch the world’s greatest athletes try to be great at sports that aren’t their sport.
Epitomized by the Superstars television program that aired on several networks from 1973-2003, even modern athletic cautions against cross-competitive injuries hasn’t totally doused the format.
CBC made the latest entry this week ahead of the FINA World Cup Series meet in Toronto when they took swimmers to the ice to try out curling.
They may be elite in the water… 🏊♀️
BUT what if that water is frozen and pebbled? 🥌
Watch elite swimmers from around the world give curling a try ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/C8YKIQEHBr
— CBC Olympics (@CBCOlympics) October 28, 2022
Canadian Kylie Masse was trolled pretty good by the host for having never thrown a curling rock in her life. There were lots of falls and lots of fun.
The segment concluded with a head-to-head competition between some of the best swimmers in Canada, with a few internationals chipping in as well. The ‘Eh’ Team included Bailey Andison, Siobhan Haughey (of Hong Kong), Kylie Masse, and Javier Acevedo.
They faced off against Team Timbits, which included Canadians Finlay Knox and Tessa Cieplucha, but also Sweden’s Louise Hansson and Italy’s Thomas Ceccon. While the lack of a third Canadian might seem like a disadvantage – the gold medals in curling at the 2022 Winter Olympics actually went to Great Britain, Italy, and Sweden. Canada mustered only a single bronze in the sport that Scotland created, but that the Canucks have been the world’s greatest patrons of.
Acevedo opened waving the flag in the trash talk department. Ceccon, who broke a World Record in the 100 back over the summer, was less confident.
“My team, I think is ready, but I don’t know,” Ceccon said of his team’s chances.
There were some rocky throws in practice, but the teams did eventually score some points, and with a little bit of coaching, points were scored.
The Timbits came away with the win, and had some choice words post-end that seemed aimed at the vocal leader of the Eh Team, Acevedo.
“I love when people talk a big game and they can’t back it up.” Knox said. Ceccon added “Just win. Just win, and I love winning.”
But Acevedo wasn’t done, blaming the win on the lack of a Swede on their team. He promised a rematch down the road with a different result.
A story: In the early years of SwimSwam, Brian Henry, father of Texas A&M All-American swimmer Sarah Henry, used to organize ‘parents outings’ with a similar idea. With the help of SwimSwam to market the event, Henry gathered up as many swim parents as he could find, loaded them on buses, and took them out to do a sport together. In 2014 in Minneapolis, the natural choice was curling.
Brian arranged for us to go curling at an international-caliber curling center near the city. We got a quick lesson and then were let free to do our best. The game is addicting, it was crazy fun, and I would do it again, any day. That remains one of my favorite opportunities brought about by SwimSwam.
I can never decide if curling or golf is the dumber “sport” (yes, you will all downvote this, but we ALL love SWIMMING!)
Golf is arguably more of a sport that swimming or track and field, which are racing(stay with me). Sports in my mind are things you “play” like soccer, rugby, tennis, basketball, and yes golf. You don’t say you “play swimming”, you swim, which perhaps makes it an activity? To enjoy physical games makes you “sporty”? Also, welcome to November and thank the sky people for all sports whether they involve racing or scoring goals or making balls go to their homes
Good that linguistic variation, though, be based on the age of an activity, and whether it predated the modern concept of ‘sport’? And what of the activities that overlap the two nomenclatures? People definitely also say “I golf.”
I don’t know that linguistics is the best way to parse sports vs. not-sports. In fact, I’ve often wondered why it’s so important for us to make that distinction anyway.
“Sport” likely means any competition in general, which is why chess and league of legends counts. The linguistics matter only if the “Lebron vs MJ” argument is taken personally
Curling was pickleball before pickleball became cool. The most fun to be had on ice.
The only thing missing from that segment was the common custom of the winning team buying the losing team a round of 🍺!