"I never thought I'd be putting duct tape on shoes," Bret Scesa said.
But there he was, standing on the ice on Tuesday in Wollman Rink in Central Park with duct tape covering the soles of his US$500 Ferragamo loafers, for what amounted to Curling 101. Yes, curling, a Rodney Dangerfield of Olympic sports, one that gets no respect, one that has been mocked by David Letterman.
Also on the ice, ready to tutor Scesa and about 40 other Bank of America employees, were five people with experience, ability, agility and decidedly different shoe coverings: the members of the US women's curling team.
Next month, the team will be in Turin, Italy, trying to fend off Canadian and Danish competitors at the Winter Olympics. But on Tuesday, they were demonstrating the form needed to deliver a stone.
As Scesa learned, that is curling talk for what is supposed to happen in their sport. The stone is a 19kg weight made of granite. It is supposed to glide down the ice, aided by team members with brooms who furiously sweep a path for it, and come to a stop somewhere inside "the house," which to a non-curler looks like a bull's-eye that has three circles, close, closer and closest.
"An Olympic sport -- that's how I explained it to my wife," Scesa said. "It's like shuffleboard on ice. She said, `You're nuts.' She told me to get out my old football pads. I'm a mess on ice."
But he was not one of those who fell on his backside. Scot Meyer, who handles risk management for fixed-income trading, shrugged after he was back on his feet.
sophisticated soles
"These girls are amazing," he said. "They make it look so easy."
The team has the equipment. Where he and Scesa had duct tape, the Olympians had more sophisticated soles. Four of them wear shoes with Teflon on what curlers call their sliding foot, which for a right-handed curler is the left foot. The fifth, Cassie Johnson, a 24-year-old curler from Bemidji, Minnesota, uses a shoe with stainless steel sole; she thinks it's better.
So had any of the bankers curled before? The question was put to a bank spokeswoman who said, "I curled my hair." She would not give her name -- "We're trained not to say anything," a spokesman standing nearby said, introducing Allison Gardiner, a vice president who said she had only curled on ice once.
"Curling has a long history," Gardiner said, "as does the bank."
Which goes back further, curling or the bank? "I bet the bank is older," she said.
a long, long time ago
The spokesman, who had said spokesmen were trained not to say anything, said that the bank's roots go back to 1784.
Gardiner checked with one of the Olympians, Maureen Brunt, who said that curling dates to at least the 1500s.
So much for the idea that the bank was older.
Gardiner explained the purpose of the demonstration.
"People sort of laugh at this sport," she said. "They don't understand how much strength it takes to push the stone. The average television watcher thinks it's not that difficult."
If the demonstration was a first for the bank employees, whose bank is a sponsor of the Olympic curling team, it was also a first for the team members -- the first time they had curled out of doors.
Modern-day curling is mainly an indoor sport, the team members said.
"It doesn't make you cool in high school class," explained Cassie Johnson, a fourth-generation curler who has been competing with her sister Jamie, an Olympic teammate, since Cassie was in kindergarten.
But she said she was sure that she could turn Letterman into a fan, given the chance.
"For entertainment purposes, he'd still make fun of curling," she said, "but on his show curling would get more respect."
US national team star Folarin Balogun was among the scorers as AS Monaco on Friday won 3-1 at Paris Saint-Germain, dealing a blow to the side from the French capital before they face Chelsea in a crunch UEFA Champions League round-of-16 tie. Maghnes Akliouche gave Monaco a first-half lead at the Parc des Princes, and Aleksandr Golovin doubled their advantage early in the second half of the French Ligue 1 clash. Bradley Barcola pulled one back for the reigning European champions, but Balogun struck shortly after with a fifth goal in his last five games as Monaco claimed a precious
West Ham United on Monday advanced to the FA Cup quarter-finals with a 5-3 penalty shoot-out win against Brentford, who paid the price for Dango Ouattara’s spot-kick blunder. Nuno Espirito Santo’s side twice blew the lead as Jarrod Bowen’s double was canceled out by an Igor Thiago brace to force extra-time in the 2-2 draw at the London Stadium, but in the shoot-out, Brentford winger Ouattara attempted a chipped Panenka penalty, but his woeful effort was straight at West Ham goalkeeper Alphonse Areola. It was an awful mistake by the Burkina Faso international and West Ham took full advantage. Bowen, Valentin Castellanos, Callum
Teenage star Lamine Yamal’s superbly-taken goal on Saturday earned Barcelona a 1-0 win at Athletic Bilbao in Spanish La Liga. The champions restored their four-point lead over second-placed Real Madrid, who had on Friday temporarily closed the gap by beating Celta Vigo. Atletico Madrid tightened their grip on third with an entertaining 3-2 win over Real Sociedad. Yamal, 18, curled into the top corner after 68 minutes to split the sides at Athletic’s San Mames stadium. “We’re already seeing what Lamine can do — he puts it right in the top corner, and there’s nothing the keeper can do,” Barca
Thanks to Italy beating Mexico on Wednesday, the US get another chance in the World Baseball Classic (WBC). What looked like a potentially disastrous early exit for US manager Mark DeRosa and his team turned out to be nothing more than substantial worry and significant embarrassment for about 24 hours. It remains to be seen whether the US really want to win badly enough for the reprieve to matter, as if it is just a switch they can flick, but there is little reason for their fans to be optimistic. The team’s attitude and behavior have been all over the place when
RSS