--- title: Olympics 2018: U.S. Curler Looks Like Super Mario Meme description: The 2018 Winter Olympics only just begun but the Internet has already spotted the first hilarious lookalike of the PyeongChang Games. canonical: https://time.com/5141448/olympics-2018-us-curler-super-mario-meme/ author: Megan McCluskey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-02-09T16:24:17.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-12T08:57:24.648Z og:title: The Internet Is Convinced This U.S. Olympic Curler Looks Exactly Like Super Mario og:description: Mamma mia! og:url: https://time.com/5141448/olympics-2018-us-curler-super-mario-meme/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta95f2b339b708313/698926e28fd2ee4f1335aa11/olympics-curling-super-mario.jpg?branch=production&width=594&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 594 og:image:height: 334 og:image:alt: Olympics-Curling-Super-Mario og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Internet Is Convinced This U.S. Olympic Curler Looks Exactly Like Super Mario twitter:description: Mamma mia! twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta95f2b339b708313/698926e28fd2ee4f1335aa11/olympics-curling-super-mario.jpg?branch=production&width=594&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Internet Is Convinced This Olympic Curler Looks Exactly Like Super Mario > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=8eb712db-a1c7-45d0-b45d-92c4de0f8ad4&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: How To Watch Curling [Watch (HLS stream): How To Watch Curling](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/YNppxNLX.m3u8) (3:24)  _Published 2018-01-30. What you need to know about the sport of curling, featuring TIME's Sean Gregory and former National Curling Champion Martin Sather._  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Feb 9, 2018 4:24 PM UTC  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Feb 9, 2018 4:24 PM UTC The [2018 Winter Olympics](http://time.com/5141249/olympics-opening-ceremony-photos/) may have only just begun but the Internet has already spotted the first hilarious [doppelgänger](http://time.com/4459611/2016-rio-olympics-celebrity-doppelgangers/) of the PyeongChang Games. After [U.S. curler Matt Hamilton](http://time.com/5092825/curling-sport-terms-rules-history/) took the ice to compete alongside his sister, Rebecca Hamilton, in mixed doubles curling on Thursday, some viewers were quick to point out that he bears an uncanny resemblance to famed Nintendo plumber Mario. [Twitter user Jon](https://twitter.com/douglasturtle/status/961395408223191040) seems to have been the first to take note of the similarity online, tweeting out a picture of Hamilton with the caption, “Just watching the Olympics during my night class and we have Mario on our curling team!!” The official Team U.S.A. account then came through in the clutch, creating a side-by-side comparison of Hamilton and Hamilton with Mario’s head delivering a stone during one of Thursday’s round robin matchups. “Spot the difference,” the caption read. By Friday, even Hamilton himself was on board with his red hat-wearing mustachioed lookalike, sharing the meme to promote his team’s face-off with Sweden. Mamma mia, here we go again. > [](https://twitter.com/douglasturtle/status/961395408223191040) > [](https://twitter.com/TeamUSA/status/961419657960935424) > [](https://twitter.com/MattJamilton/status/961740197519085568) ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] We're here at the [ UNKNOWN ] curling club with Martin Sather, 2012 National Curling Champion. And going in to the 2018 Olympics, Martin is gonna tell us what we need to know about curling. So the main idea is to get your rocks closer than the other team's rocks to the middle. And for every one you can get closer you score one point. It's a little akin to baseball, right? Innings and line ups and-- Yeah. So an end in Curling is like an inning in baseball. Once all 16 rocks are thrown down to The one end of the ice, that's called an end. There's ten ends, and then who ever has the highest score after those ten ends wins the game. Describe the concept of the hammer. Like what that is, and why it's so important. So the hammer is when the team is throwing the last rock of. So if let's say the Yellow Team throws the last rock of that end, they have the hammer. And that's a big advantage, because they get the last shot. So you know, the other team has to make sure they don't leave it set up nicely for that other team's last shot to maybe score on multiple points. There's four positions on the team. They're called the lead, who throws the first two rocks. The second throws the second two rocks. The third of the vice skip throws the third two and then your skip throws the last two rocks. And then the skip is also kinda the team captain. They call the strategy and they don't do much of the sweeping, that's left up to the other three players. When you're throwing a curling shot the first thing you do is you're going to get into what's called the hack, which is these two blocks right here. Depending on if you're right or left- handed. You're getting into the right hack, or the left hack. For me, I'm right- handed, so I'm gonna get into this one, here, with my gripper foot. My other foot, my left, is going to have a slippery surface, called a slider, underneath it. And that's so I can slide on the ice, and then, you get down on the hack. The first thing you always do is, you clean the bottom of your rock, because there's always some kind of ice or debris underneath. And you make sure that's clean. Line yourself up with your target. You lean forward a little bit and bring it back and then, you slide out. [ BLANK_AUDIO ] You have to release the stone by this line, called the Hog Line and if you don't, Then the stone gets removed from play. Why is there sweeping? What does this, you know, what does the sweeping do? It's called curling, so the rock is going on a left to right or right to left trajectory, depending on how you throw it. And the sweeping can straighten that path out a little bit, and it can also keep the rock from slowing down. So you can actually carry the stone further. The skip is gonna yell out directions to the sweepers. So things that the skip is gonna say, either they're gonna say yes, no, sometimes hurry or hard. So in a situation like this where you have axe in the house, two reds and two yellows, you'd have one yellow that's close to all of them and that would score one point because it's out counting the red. And the red is out counting the other yellow here. So it would be one point for yellow. So if I was to skip for red and it was my shot, I'd want to make the double takeout on the yellows and hit this one here into this back one. Take them both out, roll right here, and score three points. [ MUSIC ] If I was a skip for the yellow team and it was my shot, I'd either wanna throw what's called a guard and block this off in the front of the rings or I'd wanna make a takeout on the red. 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