Rock Star Curling?

[Hakan]

A new TV show is taking athletic Americans and intensively training them for a chance to be the American representative at the 2010 Olympics.

Is this ridiculous or what? 6 - 8 months of training will get you past the Olympic trials?

http://www.globesports.com/servlet/s...rtsHockey/home

Here's what the concept of Rock Star Curling does involve: Non-curling, athletically inclined Americans trying out for a men's and a women's curling team.
The ultimate prize will be a trip to the Vancouver Olympics as the U.S. representatives in the curling tournament.

[Arsenal14]

I would be quite surprised if they won the US qualifiers. I would think that any reasonably talented athlete can become a technically solid curler with 6 months of training, but the mental aspects of the game would be a problem. Things like strategy and reading ice comes mostly from experience and would likely be the downfall of any team created by this show.

On the other hand, I'll be sure to watch it and it's always great to see curling get some exposure in the US, especially on network television.

[redforever]

Even more to it than mental toughness.

I can not see a 6 month window being enough to get down the weight for curling, you need years of practice to achieve that. You need to know the ice and have a feel for your weight not just for making a shot on the button but for guards and stuff like that too. Getting a feel for weight under certain circumstances and under certain ice conditions requires years of throwing rocks.

And I can not see someone taking to skipping in a 6 month time frame either. They are responsible for reading the ice and deciding on how much to give with the broom for the curlers' shot to be accurate.

Take out shots, I can see, if the skip has given the proper amount of ice for the shot.

[Ford Prefect]

What a disappointment ... I thought this was going to be a thread about Rock Stars doing human curling. You know, where people take a running start and throw themselves into an inner tube on a sheet of ice and become a human curling rock? I'd love to see Jann Ardin do a double take out of Avril Levigne and Celine Dion.

[Slava]

If they can become olympic curlers in 6 months then this just speaks to my pathetic ability as a curler!!

[Deelow]

Originally Posted by Slava

If they can become olympic curlers in 6 months then this just speaks to my pathetic ability as a curler!!

All depends on where you are Curling. I remember talking to some of the teams at the World Women's a couple years ago. some of those girls had only been curling for 2 years.
If you move to Japan you may earn a spot on the national team.

[Bobblehead]

Here's another article from a couple days ago:http://www.thestar.com/article/302386

Patzke said the television teams would be given no advantage.

"They would have to enter the U.S. Olympic team trials playdowns like any other U.S. Olympic-eligible team," he said.

"There are no special concessions."

But the interesting/scary thing, IMHO:

But curling was one of the surprise hits of the last two Olympics for NBC, enough so that NBC aired 24 matches live from Turin on one of its cable channels.

Although curling seldom gets more than 800,000 viewers on NBC, it once drew higher ratings than an NHL playoff game that aired at the same time the next day.

What curling did NBC show that would occur the day before an NHL playoff game? The Turin Olympics were late Feb (I remember Olympic hockey over Family Day weekend).

[SeeGeeWhy]

Is it just me, or are some of the women in curling kinda hot?

[Slava]

Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy

Is it just me, or are some of the women in curling kinda hot?

I agree entirely....some of those girls are definitely hot!

[Reaper]

Originally Posted by Slava

I agree entirely....some of those girls are definitely hot!

Which is compounded by all of the long legged stretching and shouts of "hard, harder, harder!"

[HotHotHeat]

Keep in mind makeup is the only sport where the girls where makeup.

Just sayin', makeup can do amazing things.

[worth]

this is a pretty cool idea actually.

[Prototype]

I love when people put... "Win the chance to"... They aren't on this reality show to win a spot on at the Olympics. They're there to win a spot to try and win a spot. That's classic.