Rock 'n' roll girls

The first thing you are likely to notice about the members of the U.S. women's curling team for the 2006 Winter Olympics is they're so young.

The second thing you're likely to notice is they're so nice which might actually be part of the reason they've been successful.

If the fictional Lake Woebegon were to send any of its residents to the Olympics, they would probably be a lot like these five women. They're attractive (they get e-mail love letters from young European men who've seen them on TV), sweet-natured and in the case of sisters Cassie and Jamie Johnson and alternate Courtney George even have the appropriate Northern Minnesota accent, straight out of the movie "Fargo."

"I think the most outstanding characteristic about this team," said George, "is that they're just so easy to get along with, and they're just such great people. Besides being honored to be their teammate, I love them just as friends. ... We're just one big happy family right now."

The ability to get along was actually a factor in recruiting team members (or, in curling terminology, the rink), explained Jamie Johnson.

"Their personality was very important," she said. "We want people that we can get along with. The main thing for us is to have fun on the ice. If you didn't have fun when you play your sport, then something's wrong."

As an example, Cassie Johnson sites her relationship with Maureen Brunt, a team member from Portage, Wis. Johnson was attending a junior curling camp, but was a bit nervous about it, because she didn't know anyone else taking part. That was where she met Brunt.

"I remember Maureen kind of becoming my friend that weekend," Cassie said, "kind of taking me in and making me one of her friends. And maybe about two years later, we were looking for a teammate, and I remembered Maureen because she had been so nice and so friendly. I was like, ¿Jamie, let's call up Maureen this summer and see if she wants to curl with us this season.' "

Their ages 19 to 25 are notable in a sport that is not exactly dominated by the young; the oldest competitor on the U.S. Olympic team is a 54-year-old member of the men's curling team.

"I think it took a while for us to get (the competition's) respect as a young team," said Brunt, "because that's all you're seen as, that you don't have much experience. And curling is traditionally seen as a sport where you need to have the experience in order to compete at an elite level."

Despite their relative youth, most of the team members have a decent amount of experience, because they started competing at an early age. Brunt and the Johnsons began by age 7, George at 10 and Jessica Schultz, the latecomer, at 13.

In addition to that hands-on experience, the Johnsons supplemented their curling knowledge from an unlikely source: television. Having grown up near the Canadian border, they were able to watch both the Canadian Broadcasting Company and TSN (Canada's version of ESPN), which televise major curling tournaments. (No, that's not an oxymoron.)

"That's basically where I started getting my strategy from, and my techniques in curling," said Cassie Johnson. "And that's probably one of the keys to the successes this team has had."

The other, she says, is something that seems unlikely, given the youth of the team.

"I guess the biggest key to our success has been patience," said Cassie Johnson. "Many times, we've come in second place, third place, or we've made it to the semis and we've lost. This year, it was our year. We waited for this opportunity, and we really, really made that opportunity work for us this year, with all our past practicing and accomplishment."

The curling teams were actually the first members of the 2006 U.S. Olympic team. While the vast majority of athletes were selected in December and January, the curling teams were selected in February 2005, to allow them more time to prepare together.

"I believe the longer training process has helped us mentally and physically prepare for the Olympics," said Schultz, who took up curling while growing up in Alaska but moved to Minnesota in order to play more. "... We've been going to the gym, we've been able to plan our bonspiels (tournaments) ahead of time, and get everything prepared. We don't feel like we're running around with our heads cut off trying to get everything right before the Olympics."

That has also given the women, in particular, a chance to become spokespeople for a sport with a decidedly low profile in the United States, though one that may be growing slightly.

"I've noticed people have actually heard of the sport now," said Cassie Johnson. "If you get on an airplane, and you're like, ¿Oh, we're on the curling team,' now we get, ¿Oh, that's that thing you do when you're sweeping rocks.' "

So the Olympic team members have spent a good deal of time leading up to the Olympics explaining their sport, which to the uninitiated seem like a bizarre mix of shuffleboard and housekeeping, with a good deal of impenetrable terminology (bonspiels, hacks, hogs) thrown in.

In October, for example, the women's team was featured at a pre-Olympic media conference in Colorado Springs, Colo., and held the only hands-on session allowing journalists to try their sport, all the while answering all manner of questions.

Jamie Johnson, for example, tried to explain why the sport was far more difficult than it looked.

"It's a lot of balance," she explained. "You have the specific curling shoes one's a slider and one's a gripper, and it's hard to balance. And you have to have flexibility sliding out of the hack, delivering the rock and balancing at the same time. ... And you have to have a feel for distance, like golf, throwing the rock and a certain destination."

Schultz understood such explanations just came with the sport's moment in the Olympic spotlight.

"We don't mind, actually," she said. "We like how everybody's kind of curious and wants to know more about the sport. We're doing whatever we can to get curling out and known to everybody.

"We get the same questions. Sometimes we get silly ones, like, ¿Do you actually bring your own stones with you?' " She allowed herself a moment of sarcasm: "Yeah, we carry eight 42-pound rocks with us wherever we go."

But when a reporter (not this one) admitted to asking that very question, Schultz was almost apologetic. "We get that a lot," she said, "so don't feel bad."

See? They really are nice.

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