Olympics fever in my pyjamas: exciting, amazing, inspiring

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I know many people who live for curling season and I now understand why: It's a game of supreme skill.
I was on the edge of my seat watching some of the matches, especially the medal games. 

It doesn’t seem right, really, but I enjoyed it all while still in my pyjamas; tea, then coffee, in hand, while winter athletes gave it their all, in uniforms suited for every sport. I watched, mesmerized as much by their power and endurance as their strategy (curling!) and their skill (every sport).

Winners decided by milliseconds or millimetres

Those taking big air
Those making rocks curl
Those doing laps on blades

Lungs heaving
Bodies straining
Hearts pounding

Amazing — them
Amazed — me

I don’t understand much (any) of it, but I can appreciate what I am seeing

Years of training
Oceans of sacrifice
Country-big yearnings

It was all on the line at the 2026 Olympics, the Milano Cortina Games in Italy

My seat was front-row via my screen, the CBC commentary outstanding, explaining just enough for me to understand enough about curling or halfpipe or Nordic combined or figure skating (hooray for Alysa Liu and her “That’s what I’m fu*king talking about!” gold-medal performance) or speed skating (did you catch the men's Mass Start event? Super strategy on blades!) to feel invested in the speed, the skill, the strategy — the competition — unfolding while I sat comfortable on the sofa in my home.

My heart pounding
My lungs not heaving
My body definitely not straining

Oh, but what beauty in powerful motion those athletes had — gliding, hurtling, sprinting, enduring across the distance of their sport.

I can appreciate that, no matter the flag they carry or the place they finish.

I loved seeing their delight (relief?) once across whatever their sport’s finish line looks like, and then the camaraderie among and between the athletes and across language barriers and country borders. Just humans, giving their all in a sport that, for some reason, they love and pursue beyond all reason, really.

Every two years, the world gets Olympic fever, and this year I caught it bad, loving every minute of what I watched from the comfort of my sofa.

NOTE: I cannot watch the hockey games. I understand too little and, when it’s a gold medal game between Canada and the US, my heart can’t take the stress. I keep an ear open, from a distance, and cheer or lament, depending on the outcome.



We made a schedule but the excitement got us hooked
into sports beyond those shown here. Such fun.

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.

Curling rock photo credit: Felix from Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

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