"It's a strange thing to have a sports fandom that operates on something like the same life cycle as a cicada, but I do, and curling is that sport. Even by the standards of Olympic sports that I barely know how to watch, curling is both abstracted and wonderful to me-the opacity of it, the ASMR-adjacent audio experience, the strange and specific mastery required."
"Then it was time to talk curling. We started with the basics, then discussed the technological arms race in the sport, which was the subject of Broomgate and is invisible in every moment of every match: the stones (all mined from one quarry on one island in Scotland!), the brooms, the shoes, and other deceptively ordinary-looking aspects of the sport."
A personal fandom frames curling as cyclical and oddly compelling, defined by sensory details and specialized mastery. A consumer anecdote describes purchasing discounted Barstool-branded coffee, a close reading of its packaging text, an ironic use of the phrase "positive vibes," and an account of recording too-spicy-for-TV jokes. The focus then shifts to curling fundamentals and a technological arms race centered on equipment: stones (from a single Scottish quarry), brooms, shoes, and other tools. Notable controversies such as Broomgate and Boopgate illustrate disputes within a collegial sporting culture. Curling's physicality relies on repetitive technique, challenging conventional athletic definitions.
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