Curling Anyone??

The past three days or so, Rob and I have been obsessed about watching the Curling competitions through out the day for Men and Women in the Olympic Games. It is a sport that neither of us really knew much about the sport, but found it an interesting game to watch.

Rob looked up what the sport of curling was. He found over on wikipedia (love that site) the following,
"Curling is a team sport with similarities to lawn bowling and shuffleboard played on a sheet of carefully prepared ice. Two teams of four players take turns sliding heavy, polished granite stones down the ice towards the house (a circular target marked on the ice). The purpose is to complete each end (delivery of 16 stones) with the team's stones closer to the centre of the house than the other team's. Two sweepers with brooms or brushes accompany each stone and use stopwatches and their best judgment, along with direction from their teammates, to help direct the stones to their resting place."

Each end is like an inning in baseball. In competitive curling there are 10 Ends. If the score is tied at the end of the tenth end, then you go into extra ends (like in baseball extra innings). The first team who scores wins the game. So how does one team score?? When looking at the board there are three circles.  Green, then white, and then a blue cirlce (well at least in the winter games these are the colors of the circles). A team wants to get their stone the closest to the inside circle, which in this case for the olympics, a team wants to be closest to the dark blue. Each team has eight stones in each end. Once both teams has thrown all their stones, the stones closest to the blue are the ones counted.

Such a fascinating game!!! If you get a chance...take some time to check out what I am talking about while it is on.

Check out the video on how the game looks while being played...

Are you Game?

Today is day three of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. I love this time of year. I know that some may not care for it..but it is something like I said in an earlier post this past week that I grew up watching. What are your favorite events for the Olympics?? Are there certain events that you can not miss? Watching the games this year makes me remember staying up late when I was in grade and high school watching the games to see who would win gold.

The events that I like to watch are snowboarding, luge, any of the downhill skiing, some of the cross country skiing, bobsled and figure skating are some that I try to watch. I like the men's speed skating, but can not stand that the announcers talk through the entire race!!

Rob mentioned today that he remembers watching figure skating on Saturday evenings on prime time when he was a kid. I sat and thought to myself and remembered the same thing. Yet now if you want to see figure skating, you have to either really search for it on television. Anymore you see only the holiday specials or something in that nature for figure skating.

I am enjoying some of the more modern sports that have crept into the olympics like snowboarding. I just love watching someone do tricks and or race while on a board. I too can do those same tricks when I am walking in the snow and slip on some ice. haha. I may have some wonderful sweet words to go along with it, too.

Let the games BEGIN!!

Cue Olympic theme.....NBC announcer comes over the music to welcome to 2010 Winter Games, and Olympic theme dies out into the back. Oh I love this time of year. Rob can not stand watching the Olympic Games but I grew up watching them and there are certain events in each season that I love to see. In addition though to the Olympic Games starting up, Survivor: Heros vs Villians premiered on Thursday and on Sunday The Amazing Race will start. What an exciting month for me!!

In my house, Rob and I tend to pick our favorite person or team to cheer for on each reality game show that we watch. This season with Survivor I thought I would include my sister and brother-in-law into the game. No one really wins anything if their person or team wins but it is still fun to watch.

Thursday's opener for Survivor was amazing!! If you have not watched the two hour premier do not read any further as you may be upset that I gave stuff away. I figured I would blog about the show on Saturdays to allow people a day or so to watch the show. Like I said, what an opener!!! First reward challenge just minutes after the welcome to the new season. By the end of the challenge Stephanie had popped out her shoulder and Rupert had a broken toe. these all-stars are not going to go easy on each other. It will definitely be an interesting challenge.

Bryan, Dana, and I have picked one person from each side and Rob is going to pick just one person for the whole game. Bryan has picked Russell from the Villain side and Colby from the Hero side. Dana chose Boston Rob  and Stephanie. I well still have a hard time choosing. There are so many good players on the Heros side. *sigh* I think I will pick Tom for Hero's and Boston Rob for the other side. I am kind of worried to see how this all plays out based on the preview of next week when you see Boston Rob passing out. eeek!

I was glad to see that Sugar was sent home though. I never liked her from the original season that she was on and she was the one who messed up the challenge for her team to win this week.

So who are your favorites?? Who will you root for to win??