"This looks like a nefarious plot to get me to sweep out the garage," commented Visionary as he held the broom in his hand. He contemplated the synthetic fabric coating the broom head. "When did Al B. make these space age brooms?"

"A fake broom for a fake man!" cackled CrazySugarFreakBoy!.

The Regular's reflexes were still sharp. "I'm real dammit!"

"It's to sweep the ice," Hatman said matter-of-factly as he pulled on his special shoes.

"Aren't there zambonis for that?" checked Nats as he parried a thrust from CSFB!. The two had chosen to use their brooms as fighting staffs while passing the time.

Hatman shook his head and pulled his Grand Slam hat out of his bag. "Wrong sport."

"I told you there weren't zambonis in broomball!" crowed CSFB! as he bounded around the lounge area. Donar reached up and snatched the Wired Wonder in mid-air and returned him to the ground.

"When our leader doth speak we stand tall and pay him his heed," said the ruler of Ausgard.

"How did you get away from Ausgard to slum with your Legion pals, by the way?" asked Nats as he landed next to the hemi-god.

"I didst get caught observing Valkyries Gone Wild by mine Queen," explained Donar. "Midgard art to be the doghouse."

"We're not here to play broomball," explained Hatman. "I thought maybe we could try to do a little team building with an Olympic flare."

"We're going to sweep up after the torch run?" asked Visionary.

"We're going to do some curling," replied Hatman.

"Bountiful curls art unseemly for a warrior of Ausgard," warned Donar. He had an image to maintain.

"We're not doing anything to our hair, it's a sport. Come out onto the ice and I'll show you," said Hatman as he led the way.

Donar tucked his hair up under his helmet, just to be safe.

* * * * *

"So the object of the game is to get my team's rocks closer to the center than the other guys?" Nats asked for clarification.

"Basically, yes," responded Hatman. "There is a lot of strategy to the game, but that's it in a nutshell. Each team is made up of four players, and each player throws 2 rocks, alternating with the other team."

"Sounds easy enough," said Visionary as he finished strapping his slider to his shoe. "And these slider things will let me glide along the ice?"

Vizh stepped onto the ice and promptly fell on his backside.

"Now thou art talking!" exclaimed Donar. Enjoying the pain of others was a time honoured tradition in Ausgard.

"You only put those on one of your feet Vizh, not both," explained Hatman as he helped the possible fake man to his feet.

"And the brooms are for what again?" asked Nats. He hated when Miss Framlicker put him on janitorial duty at EEE and he was dreading having to do so here as well.

"When you sweep in front of the rock, you clean debris out of the way and also momentarily melt the ice, causing the rock to travel farther and straighter," explained the Lair Legion leader.

Hatman then went on to demonstrate how to properly throw a rock, and showed how the rocks would curl from one side of the ice to the other depending on how he released the rock.

"What sorcery is this?!" exclaimed Donar as he watched the rock glide around the opposing rock in its path. "It moves as if it art a thing possessed!"

"Can I say it's science and leave it at that?" checked the Capped Crusader.

"Aye," agreed the hemi-god. Science made his head hurt, and not in a concussed-in-glorious-battle kind of way.

"Where did CSFB! get to?" asked Visionary. He had noticed the lack of non-stop chatter, and found it somewhat disconcerting; it either meant Dream was dead or had found something to occupy his time that he probably shouldn't have.

"Woohoo!" whooped the Wired Wonder as he straddled two curling rocks and pushed himself down the ice with his broom.

Hatman shook his head. "Let's just try to play a game."

* * * * *

"So thou sayest I needest to slay yon guard to advance," checked Donar as he looked down the sheet.

"You need to remove it from play, yes," confirmed Hatman. "Aim at Visionary's broom and throw it hard, it'll hit the guard."

"Did you just tell him to aim at me with a 40 pound hunk of granite?" checked Visionary from the far end of the sheet. He had spent a lot more time with the hemi-god than Hatman had.

"Have at thee, souless guardian of the button!" cried Donar as he hefted the rock in his meaty hand and hurled it with all his might. Visionary shrieked and barely managed to avoid getting pulverized. The wall of the curling rink, the adjoining hockey rink, and the laundromat across the street weren't so lucky.

"Um, I think you're supposed to push it along the ice, not throw it like a war club," clarified Nats.

"Ah. Mine bad."

* * * * *

"You're sure I can't ride the rocks down the ice?" checked CSFB!.

"I'm sure," replied Hatman.

CSFB! looked behind Hatman and a look of terror overcame his face. "Hatty, Ultizon is right behind you!!"

"What, where?!" Hatman whirled around to face the robotic menace.

"Excelsior!!" cried CSFB! as he slid down the sheet perched on top of his rock.

* * * * *

"Umm, Hatty, what do I do here?" asked Nats. Visionary had accidentally touched Nats' rock while sweeping his own and moved it out of place.

"Well, either you can reset it like it never happened, or just leave it be," Hatman explained.

Nats pondered this for a minute, then made his decision. "I don't have much luck with retcons, let's leave things be."

* * * * *

"So did you guys learn anything?" asked Hatman as the team packed up their gear.

"I learned that Canadians consider housecleaning to be a sport when you put it on ice!" chirped CSFB!.

"I didst discover a quick and easy way to raise thy insurance premiums," said Donar as he looked at the hole in the wall he had created.

"Did you guys at least have fun?" asked Hatman.

Donar slapped the Capped Crusader on the back. "Aye, Hatted One, was a fine days outing. Now, let us depart before yon laundromat owner dost decide to layeth charges."

NOTE: I'm not sure how this reads if you're unfamiliar with the sport of curling; I tried to make it accessible to those who don't know about the sport, but I don't know if I succeeded. I hope you enjoyed!

.

My brother's a big fan of curling (and the Olympics in general... he and his wife are heading up for the games this year). Coincidentally, it was so cold in Pensacola Florida recently that he sent me a video of him practicing with (plastic) curling stones on his frozen swimming pool.

Welcome back, by the way! I've just returned home after a month long trip around Florida myself (and after a month of tight deadlines and trip preparations in Dec.), so hopefully I'll be a bit more active too. Still, you're ahead of me in new stories by a fair margin.

Normally I make fun of people in warmer climes when they say it's cold, but for Florida I'll concede that actually is really cold.

I was in Arizona over the Christmas break and I was astounded to see the beverage cart girl at a golf course bundled up with her hood up and a scarf over her face; I was golfing in shorts and a t-shirt quite comfortably.




In Florida on vacation or for work?

~Hat~

True, to a lot of people curling and drinking go together, but the top level curlers train all the time to get that good. Kevin Martin, who will be representing Canada at the Olympics, works out at the same facility as the Edmonton Oilers (of the NHL). In terms of overall fitness, Kevin Martin, a curler in his early 40's, was more fit than any of the hockey players.

The game is definitely harder than it looks; I'm a certified instructor, and when I teach new curlers how to curl, I spend at least a couple of hours just on how to properly slide out of the hack to deliver a stone.

You should give it a try sometime!

~Hat~