With the winter Olympics on currently, I’ve had more than one conversation about curling. Some of those conversations were at the curling club, so those were expected and much more educated about the competition. After all, the people who are there for my Monday night league have chosen to be there and to participate in the sport. The others have been much more varied.

One was a conversation with some people at the gym. We were watching one of the skiing events and someone asked what people thought was the most boring of the winter Olympic sports. While there is a range of correct answers here, none of the curling disciplines are among them. And sometimes you need to let people know. This was one of those times.

Then yesterday, I had a conversation with someone who acknowledged going down a YouTube rabbit hole after hearing me mention curling the prior week. You’re welcome, but know that it’s not nearly as easy to execute shots as they make it look on TV. You should also know that you’ll look more like the Kelce family and their recent video of trying curling than you will the people competing at the Olympics, at least during your initial period of acclimating to the sport and the ice.

I welcome these sorts of conversations. I expect I’ll have a few more during this Olympics cycle. After all, watching it on television during the Olympics was how I first became aware of the sport that I’ve now played for several years. If you think that somehow you’ve found your ticket to gold you’re dreaming, but if you live somewhere close enough to a curling club now is a great time to try it out as most clubs conduct plenty of events for new curlers around this time.