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Rings and things

A CURLING LOVE AFFAIR: With his sister, Erika, on a curling team that was preparing for the 1988 Olympics, 12-year-old Craig Brown was asked by a CNN reporter about his thoughts on the sport. Among the highlights:

"Cold."

"Boring."

"A disease."

Apparently, a contagious disease. With curling's Olympic trials beginning today in Ogden, Utah, Craig Brown and his team are among the favorites.

Brown, who obviously grew to love the sport, won the U.S. Men's National Championship in 2000 and reached the semifinals of the 2000 World Championships.

In the crudest sense, curling is shuffleboard on ice. Four-person teams try to deliver their stones (weighing more than 40 pounds) as close as possible to the goal. Stones can be knocked away by an opponent's stone or guarded by your own stones.

The trials continue for a week with six women's and seven men's teams competing. Eight of the 10 participants from the 1998 Games in Nagano return, but most have been split up on different teams.

Brown is on a team coached by his father, Steve. His sister, Erika Brown Oriedo, is on Patti Lank's team, which won a silver in the '99 World Championships.

WHAT'S NEXT? TONY ORLANDO AND DAWN?: Those television networks are so predictable.

CBS brought Carol Burnett back to prime time after a 23-year absence and won the rating wars two weeks ago. Which prompted NBC, after a 22-year lull between appearances, to stage its own revival show on Saturday.

That's right, it's the return of luge.

Saturday's Luge Challenge from Lake Placid, N.Y., was the first time the sport was featured on network television (in a non-Olympic year) since the 1979 Olympic trials, also at Lake Placid.

REFUSING TO BE BUFFALO-ED: Talk about responding to pressure.

Freestyle skier Jeremy Bloom postponed a scholarship offer to be a receiver at Colorado because he wanted to concentrate on making the Olympic team. All Bloom missed at Colorado this season was a major upset of Nebraska and a victory against Texas in the Big 12 Championship Game.

Bloom might have made it worth his while, however, when he won bronze in a recent European event. Bloom's finish puts him a step ahead of the pack in qualifying for the U.S. Olympic team.

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