Just saw this and thought I would add a note. I am a huge Wings fan. Grew up in the Detroit area (now in the east coast) playing hockey including making rinks in the yard - good old dad would have me out there in 5 degree weather with a hose spraying it down. Let me tell you shoveling the driveway and THEN the yard was not a lot of fun, but worth it when you ended up skating outside all day every day. When I was a kid the Wings were awful, the Dead Things era, but I stuck with it and it paid off that's for sure. If you combine skill, stats with attitude and composure, nobody in hockey compares to Steve Yzerman. From Yzerman to Lidstrom to Datsyuk today, the Wings have a knack for finding absurdly skilled players who are at the same time, never whiney, bratty or self entitled (okay, there was Federov). I know people hate the wings and think they are "the yankees of the NHL" but they didn't just go out and write checks to win. A lot of teams, in any sport, can learn how to run an organization from the Red Wings.

Like me, he (probably) wasn't alive when they played.....

I don't believe anyone on the planet has signed as many autographs as Gordie Howe. Even today, at any event or hockey game there is a loooonnnng line of folks during intermissions patiently waiting for him to sign his name. Always gracious.

There is a story a local sportswriter shared when Gordie retired (the first time). A nurse was on her way home late at night and had a flat on one Detroit's poorly lit expressways and in a very rough part of the city. She sat in her car for a moment and was pretty terrified of even getting out. Lights came up behind her and a fellow knocked on her window to see if he could help. He changed the tire and got here on her way. She had no idea who he was and he didn't bother to tell her. She only realized it later when Gordie's face was all over the TV due to his pending retirement. She called the sportscaster to share her story. All I can say is pity the poor soul who might have tried to mug that good Samaritan.   

As a Canadian male, you feel obligated to love hockey.  While I will still watch some of the playoffs some years, and some of the tournaments also, I have really disliked the level of fighting in the game.  When the game matters, there's hardly any fighting, so the argument that it is a part of hockey is BS imo. 

The other day I was reading in the paper that they predict that as an adult participation sport, curling will one day surpass hockey in Canada as our baby boomer population ages.

Yep being a Kiwi Canucks fan sure was pretty to watch the Sens in the basement last night as well!! 4-2 Vancouver

Get out of town!!! No way LOL.

I love hockey and watch way too much of it. Need a TV in my shop or something I can hang around my neck so I can watch games while I work.

I like curling and think it is an easier sport for all people to play as you don't need to know how to skate or handle a puck.

I grew up on the prairies where everyone curls and bonspiels are held every second weekend so it is very popular and a great community builder. Just don't think it will surpass hockey in Canada

Dan Clermont

Curling may be fun but I have a hard time thinking of it as a sport anymore than I could think of bowling, shuffleboard or darts as sports. 

I love playing hockey but I don't get much enjoyment from watching it.  I much prefer watching the NFL or NBA to the NHL.

Dan, note that Kevin said adult participation sport not  most popular sport.  I expect that already more adults particiapte in curling than in ice hockey in Canada.  I am quite typical of such adults, having stopped palying hockey masy yearws ago, but still curling from time to time.
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I've never curled, but it is definitely a sport imo.  Admittedly, it is amazing sometimes what the sports channels try to pass off as a sport nowadays.  I get annoyed when I see "Poker" being colour coded in whatever TV listing I may be using as a "sport", and although I love darts, I know it's not a sport either.  Now bowling is hardly a parlour game.  Why wouldn't that be a sport? 

I could argue that soccer (or football as it's known over the pond) is not a sport, but a form of acting rather than a sport as it has evolved over the last few decades.  Just can't watch a "sport" with so much diving and mama crying any moreso than watching a sport with excessive levels of uneccesary violence, such as the fighting in hockey.  At least in hockey, when the games matter such as in the playoffs, the fighting minimizes whereas in soccer, the bigger the game, the "sport" diminishes to the "acting" on the pitch.

As a young teenager watching McCarty whip on lemeiux made me a fan forever, along with
the smooth as silk Stevey Y was always a great watch.  My moms family lives in Canada
And obviously had an influance in my growing up loving the game. When I was little and started
  skating with those 2 bladed skates on the pond, we had 2 right handed stick and my older bros got those, I
got the lefty stick, I'm not lefty at anything but hockey, played all through high school that way to.

Oh ya, GO WINGS  

 

Leaving the rather arrogant assumption that I have never curled slide, why is that ? Because curling can be difficult ? Because it can be tiring ?  As far as I am concerned, any activity where at the recreational level alcohol consumption is considered almost mandatory is not a sport.

I would submit that any criteria that would classify curling as sport would also so classify darts, shuffleboard, foosball, marbles, "Pop-a-shot", pinball, various card games like "Speed" and any number of video games.  All of these meet another poster's advanced definition of sport requiring "physical exertion" and are governed by a set of rules.   Does this mean "Guitar Hero" is a sport ? How about speed-eating ?

Just because an activity may be tiring (though judging by the profiles of many championship curlers, an athletic physique is not a determining prerequisite), and difficult to achieve at the highest level does not - IMHO - make it a sport.