viral: marketing usa mens curling

For those of you who avoid all news during the day so you can watch the 2006 Winter Olympics on the tube at night and be surprised at the outcomes, stop reading now.


For the rest of you, uncork the bubbly and get ready to swing from the rafters, because Pete Fenson's USA Men's Curling team won the bronze today.

Why, Bob, are you mentioning this? Especially in light of your recent penchant for poetic noodling?

I'll tell you why. I'm convinced that USA Men's Curling will be the single most marketable sports property to come out of this Olympics for us. And by us, I mean the United States.

The rest of the world has plenty of other stuff to focus on - that nice Japanese lady who won the women's figureskating gold is going to ride around on the shoulders of steamy sumo wrestlers on a golden palanquin for the rest of her life, the Italians are dancing in the streets over their short track speed skating gold, etc etc.

But other than men's curling, what do we have?

• Two petulant speed skaters you want to hose down with boiling oil to make them shut up.
• Another speed skater who has a mob name. (No offense)
• A snowboarder in his pygamas with red hair who reminds Italians of their fondness for throwing tomatos at each other.
  
• Another snowboarder in her pygamas who blew a method air on her last jump to give the gold away.
• A pair of ice dancers who look like they should be filming adult films on a backlot in Burbank.

No, I think we should embrace the unlikely victory of a squad of scrappy lads who stepped up to the challenge of beating the world's best at the world's Most Obscure Sport, Canadian fascinations notwithstanding.

USA Men's Curling has "geek-chic" written all over it. I can even see the slogan: Curling - We've Got Big Stones. I bet their on-line store is getting hammered right now.