// TUCKED IN THE BACK PAGE
I think I love this game L
By Ben Tucker,
tuck@usacurl.org
ove is a tricky word. It has proven to be impossible to define. Philosophers have tried to define love and have failed. Po-
ets have tried and, in large part, also failed. So leave the deep thinkers and poetic wordsmiths behind. Instead, read the rambling thoughts of a dirt farmer who used to be a pretty good (but never great) curler. I think I love this game of curling. Love? Well,
it is certainly never far from my mind. I think about it all the time. I’ll think about it sometimes in the summer and daily in the winter. I think about the ice and the rocks and the strategies and the clubs and the playdowns and the governance and the international scene and the Olympics. I also think about the fun bonspiels and the people and the memories and the stories. Curling, like my wife and children, is never far from my mind. Curling is also what I like to talk about most
of the time. I also like to talk about my wife and kids to anybody that will listen. We tend to talk most about that which we love most. Tere is, however, a definite distinction…a
line, if you will ... between an obsession and love. I know the difference, for I have learned it the hard way. As they say, “You don’t know what you had
until you’ve lost it.” I began to find my defini- tion of “love” when my best friend died. I was around 40 years old and he was about 50 when he paid the ultimate price for too long ignoring the early signs of prostate cancer. As the years have slipped past me, I still think of him oſten. He was a rabid fan of the evil Green Bay Packers. Should the Vikings beat the Packers and I am close to his grave, I’ll stop by and tell him all about it. Alas, that doesn’t happen oſten these days because the Vikings seem to be in a small 40-year slump. I
never go to the cemetery aſter a Packers win. His ghostly laughter would be unnerving. Losing Brad has leſt a hole in my life that I have never really been able to fill. Tat was the genesis of my thoughts on “love.”
If losing someone or something will leave a small hole in your life that you will never really be able to fill, then that is love. Your children and parents certainly fit into this category. Hopefully, you have a spouse as wonderful as mine that would fit into the definition. Even a really good pet that you remember fondly decades later was loved by you according to how I define love. I never told my best friend that I loved him.
Guys don’t do that. Guys are stupid. I was stupid. When my knee became too sore to be a good
curler (you really need to throw practice rocks to be a good curler and I haven’t been able to do that for some time now), I backed away from the game. I tried for a while to fill the hole with poker. I went from one weekend playing for pen- nies with Bill Morehouse and Tyler George (they killed me) to reading up on the game, playing a lot and becoming sorta/kinda good. Poker was a bit of an obsession for a while, but I never really loved it. Ten I tried to fill up my life more by learning about airplanes and considering flight school. I did a lot of research, but never fell in love with the idea. So, I have come back to curling. I shoot the
occasional practice rock and a game if the knee will allow it. I postpone the doctors giving me an artificial knee just in case I can play a few more games. I write this column for a dictatorial edi- tor because she is, in truth, extremely nice and she asked if I would try it for a year. I pay atten- tion to curling news, issues and results as best I can. I call some games for the
TESN.us guys and then accept positive feedback for work that was
99 percent theirs. Anything and everything just to stay close to this game because I think I love this game. It all depends on how you define love. For Te Good Of Te Game:
Nov. 16 was a truly great day for curling. Not
only did NBC Sports Network have excellent coverage of two great games, there was also a re- ception for the two Builders going into the Hall of Fame. International medals help, but the key to the future lies with our builders … and, to a certain extent, the key to international medals also lies with our builders. On a day like that Saturday, it was impossible to think of our future as anything but bright. Passions will continue to rise over any decisions made about our game, but those passions can remain under control because I doubt that we can screw this up…even if we try … unless we are lazy … a little work is all that remains between us and continued growth. One of those builders was my fellow colum-
nist, Jon Mielke. Jon is famous for sucking up to our sadistic editor. He will even go to the un- imaginable extreme of turning in his column on time [Editor's note: Not just on time, but oſten ear- ly]. Such pandering has made him Te Favorite of our whip-cracking boss. Jon, however, made a fatal mistake during his acceptance speech when he gently teased She Who Must Not Be Teased. YES! Now I am back to being Te Favorite! If you ever get a chance to meet our dictatorial
editor, you should take the time to get to know her. She is truly wonderful and works very hard for all of us. (Don’t even think about it, Garber … Mielke ain’t the only North Dakota boy that knows how to pander.) Drop me a note if you get a chance. Feel free to call me Tuck. Most curlers do. n
USA Curling (( 31
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