HURRY HARD, INDEED

Jeff Lee of The Vancouver Sun and I shared office space in the early 1980s at The Quesnel Cariboo Observer. He spent a couple years there doing sports and news and went straight to The Sun, and later became the brains behind their Internet/website evolution. For the past seven years the award-winning journalist has been The Man pertaining to all Olympic issues and writes a regular blog for the paper. One of his funnier takes is this one about curling and condoms – guess when you're getting your rocks swept, this stuff is vital to scoring!
You can read all of Jeff's fine work at www.vancouversun.com – sure, it just happens to be my employeer, too!

Here, in part, is his funny curling piece:

"... While we're still on the Olympic drugs 'n sex file, how about this one: USA Curling is teaming up with sponsor Kodiak Technology Group to sell a new brand of condoms, Hurry Hard.

The new prophylactic comes with the image of a happy rock with a long handle over top of a curling ring or house.

For the unitiated, "hurry hard" is a command used by a curler to instruct his team mates sweeping in front of a rock. Canadian Olympian curler Russ Howard helped popularize it with his booming voice.

But now the U.S. team wants to popularize it as a fundraiser, and also to help bring home the International Olympic Committee's HIV/AIDs awareness campaign. The IOC, you will recall, has encouraged organizing committees of late to provide athletes with access to condoms, and that has led to some ribbing (forgive the pun, please.) In China, for example, condoms there were branded "faster, higher, stronger," the motto of the Olympics. (And safer, too.)

The Vancouver Coastal Health Authority is providing between 50,000 and 100,000 condoms to athletes and officials at the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games. But no word yet on whether they'll be Hurry Hards. Oh please, yes!"