The Winter Olympics: A Middle Child's Eye View

      The 2010 Vancouver Olympic games were viewed by 190 million people. That’s 34 million more people than the total viewing audience for every game of 2009 NBA Finals, World Series, Bowl Championship Series, and NCAA Championship Game combined! There’s no denying the Winter Olympics are huge, so I knew my reportage of the games would have to rise to the magnitude of this global sports spectacular. I’d have to find a bigger and better Middle Child angle than simply seeking out individual Middle Child athletes to highlight, so I decided to take it up a notch and rally support for an entire Olympic event! I spanned the globe for a sport that captures the true Middle Child spirit, never quite getting the attention or acclaim it yearns for. And that’s when it hit me – curling! You know, that quirky sport that’s kind of like shuffleboard on ice, but with brooms, and large “stones” instead of pucks.

Curls Just Wanna Have Fun:
It's time for curling to take
center stage!

      So, what exactly is it about curling that makes it the Middle Child of winter Olympic sports? I’m glad you asked. For starters, curling is always being overshadowed by its sibling sports. In terms of TV viewership, it never even comes close to being the favorite. While everyone is "ooohing" and "ahhhing" over baby sister figure skating and making a big fuss over big brother ice hockey, there’s curling screaming “Hey, what about me!?” Sure, people are nice to curling. There’s something about curling that people find peculiarly interesting. It’s a big deal in Canada and in parts of Europe. There’s a lot of buzz about it online -- there's even a virtual curling game you can play. It’s not that people don’t like curling, but most people just don’t get it. Hmmm, a sport that never gets all the attention it would like and that people don’t quite understand. Gee, if that’s not a sport a Middle Child can relate to, I don’t know what is! Oh, and how about this for a little cherry on top of your Middle Child sundae -- both the men’s and woman’s curling teams finished in last place at the 2010 games. So it’s got that going for it, too. Sigh. Finally, I don’t know who invented curling, but I’m pretty sure they had to be a Middle Child. I mean, who else would think of yelling at a sliding stone while chasing after it on ice with a broom? Yeah, that’s sounds perfectly normal. But it gets even better.

CAUTION: Middle Children at play?

     I’m not going to get into exactly how the game is played (you can find out more about that by clicking HERE), but according to commonly accepted curling rules, when it looks like a team has no reasonable chance of winning, they’re encouraged to concede defeat. What what? Sooo, let me get this straight – if it looks like you’re going to lose, you can just up and quit!? Perfect. What could be more Middle Child-like than that? Do you also get to run and tell mom the other team was cheating, and that’s why they won? If I would’ve known about curling when I was younger, I would’ve asked my father to put down a curling sheet on the driveway instead of a basketball pole. No way did I have a shot of making it in the NBA, but a career in curling… who knows?

USA Curling has the full support of the
I.M.C.U. But I'm not sure they want it.

     I called the U.S.A. Curling Association on behalf of the International Middle Child Union to share my new found excitement and offer the full support of our U.S. rank and file members. I was hoping maybe they would name us an official partner or something-or-other. They have yet to return my call. That happens a lot. In the meantime, I am announcing that the I.M.C.U. is now an “Unofficial Official Supporter of U.S.A. Curling.” Let the games begin!

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All this talk of the Olympics and sports made me remember ABC’s classic “Wide World of Sports” intro, so I created a Middle Child version…