--- title: Norway Curling Team Takes Valentine Day Very Seriously description: The Norwegian men's curling team busted out their fanciest pink pants, festooned with hearts, to celebrate Valentine's Day while competing. canonical: https://time.com/5158522/norway-curling-pants-valentines/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-02-14T20:19:37.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-12T08:58:22.123Z og:title: The Internet Has Professed Its Love for Norway's Pants og:description: The curling team wears their hearts on their pants — even while competing og:url: https://time.com/5158522/norway-curling-pants-valentines/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blteac1797c2aa6cd77/6989279a86f68eb0d66e84a3/norway-curling-olympics.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5472 og:image:height: 3078 og:image:alt: Curling - Winter Olympics Day 5 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Internet Has Professed Its Love for Norway's Pants twitter:description: The curling team wears their hearts on their pants — even while competing twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blteac1797c2aa6cd77/6989279a86f68eb0d66e84a3/norway-curling-olympics.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Norway's Curling Team Takes Valentine's Day So Seriously They Put on Their Fanciest Pants > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=4e50fdfc-2629-4a35-853a-32ea0c9a20d1&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 [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Feb 14, 2018 8:19 PM UTC What you need to know about the sport of curling, featuring TIME's Sean Gregory and former National Curling Champion Martin Sather.  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Feb 14, 2018 8:19 PM UTC Norway may not have a reputation as a fashion capital. But that [all changes during the Winter Olympics](http://time.com/5113625/norway-curling-pants-2018-winter-olympics/), when the Norwegian [curling team](http://time.com/5092825/curling-sport-terms-rules-history/) pulls out its fanciest pants — literally. And for Valentine’s Day this year, the athletes on Norway’s men’s curling team in PyeongChang did not disappoint, festooning their lower halves in bubblegum-pink attire bedecked with festive hearts. A love for holiday-specific attire is certainly alive on the ice for this team. The Norwegian delegation of Christoffer Svae, Torger Nergard, Thomas Ulsrud and Havard Vad Petersson [have a tradition](http://time.com/5113625/norway-curling-pants-2018-winter-olympics/) of wearing eye-catching patterned pants for their Olympic appearances as they compete in the [most under-appreciated sport ](http://time.com/5092825/curling-sport-terms-rules-history/)at the Games. It started back in Vancouver in 2010, where they took home the silver medal, and continued in Sochi in 2014, although no fashion choices could boost them onto the medal podium back then. Although they have special red, white, and blue designs created for them to match the colors of their flag for PyeongChang, they chose to work with the Valentine’s Day holiday and bust out these hot pink trousers for this week’s first round of play, which clash brilliantly with their red shirts. Unfortunately they did not turn out to be lucky pants, as the team lost 6-4 to Japan in their first Round Robin session at the Gangneung Curling Centre. They’ll continue their medal quest — with more memorable pants in store, one hopes — against Canada [on Thursday](http://results.nbcolympics.com/results?sport%5Fid=212&date=-1). > [](https://twitter.com/Devin%5FHeroux/status/963719227432583169) > [](https://twitter.com/kararose27/status/963748757421555712) > [](https://twitter.com/PippaField23/status/963722612919517184) > [](https://twitter.com/RedArgyle/status/963747697219067907) > [](https://twitter.com/Msbraydeelynn/status/963854186638073856) > [](https://twitter.com/DefaultPizza/status/963736664391774208) > [](https://twitter.com/gamblersruin/status/963850138702708736) > [](https://twitter.com/%5FKellie%5FL/status/963843840414244866) ## 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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