Every four years, the world holds a curling tournament that most people refer to as “the Winter Olympics.” Yes, the ice dancers will dance, the ski jumpers will jump, and the double lugers will inexplicably stack on top of each other to hurtle down a track at 80 miles an hour. But in my house, nearly every day of the 25th Winter Games will be spent watching men and women sweeping ice to make way for 40-pound granite rocks.

For a quiet and reserved sport, curling seems to provoke fierce reactions. Its detractors place it among the most absurd of the Olympic events, such as racewalking or the brief experiment with ski ballet at the 1988 and 1992 Games. To be sure, it’s true that it can look remarkably like televised darts. And the competitors are not as physically impressive as the cross-country skiers. The sport does not require the bravery of skeleton sledding.