Curlers upset with American Airlines after agent allegedly denies curling is a sport

[TexasTowelie]

Canadian-born curler Erin McInrue Savage understands her sport isn't the most popular of athletic endeavors in the United States. But she doesn't think she should have to make the case that curling is a sport at all.

Yet that's what Savage, a researcher on aging, said she was forced to do last Sunday, Oct. 8, when an American Airlines employee at Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport allegedly balked at allowing her to check her curling broom as sporting equipment.

"[The agent] said curling isn't a sport," McInrue Savage, 34, said Saturday, a day after posting her exchange in a post that went viral on Facebook. "I told her it's in the Olympics."

McInrue Savage said the interaction began after the agent initially refused to allow her to check her equipment bag for $25, the standard fee for an excess sports equipment bag that her curling teammates were charged on the way out. (McInrue Savage, who resides in Oakland, said she flew to Phoenix on a different airline.)

Read more: http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/4344891-curlers-upset-american-airlines-after-agent-allegedly-denies-curling-sport

[Laffy Kat]

1. It's in the Winter Olympics.

How can it be in the Olympics if it's not a sport?

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

2. You beat me to it!! Fun to watch too!!

[JayhawkSD]

9. Well, the Olympics is heavily political and includes several bogus "sports."

Croquet for instance, but curling is most certainly a sport.

[pansypoo53219]

3. they can't google it? jeez.

[Throck]

4. Everyone in curling takes a knee.

[Iggo]

11. Best.

[Throck]

15. New age curling

[Lucky Luciano]

5. Yes..it's in the olympics...a stretch to call it a sport.

It is a game though.

[zipplewrath]

6. As are many games

The English language isn't real clear on the difference between a game and a sport.

[JonLP24]

7. Yeah the it's a game not a sport never made sense to me

They're both games, they are both sports.

[zipplewrath]

8. Bit like pornography

It's a bit like Justice Stewart's view on pornography. The speaker usually knows what they are talking about, but cannot define it in a way that another observer would come to the same conclusion. i.e. "I know it when I see it".

Monopoly isn't a sport, but it's a game. I'd put poker in the same category. Strangely, that also means that ballet isn't a game, but it is an athletic activity, even though there is no competition to make it a sport, nor a game. Alternately, auto racing is usually classified as a sport even though it is vastly less "athletic" than even golf. It is a competition, but I've always had a problem calling it a sport. And we're getting there with video games, in which there are a large number of competitions, which make it a game, but no one has yet started calling it a sport (yet). Skydiving is considered a sport, even though it doesn't require even the physical ability of a race car driver.

Someone once suggested that all sports are games, but not all games are sports. Alternately, I once saw someone say "you don't have to play a game, to be an athlete". Which meant a ballet dancer could be an athlete.

In the end, as we all know, it is a pointless distinction.

[JonLP24]

10. There are regular sports and "mind" sports like chess

I don't get so hung up on the details but I miss Jack Rabbit's chess threads and gloat-free baseball scores.

[Lucky Luciano]

12. Ballet would definitely be a sport if they had scores like gymnastics.

Alas, that is not what they do - outside of auditioning!

[Jim Lane]

14. I'm not sure that "all sports are games"

For example, the term "sportsmen" is often used (depending on the context) to mean hunters and anglers. Hunting and fishing generally aren't games (although there are occasional tournaments) but there's a case for classifying them as sports. I wonder if airline passengers can check fishing rods and such at the reduced rate for sports equipment.

Curling is obviously a sport, even without the blessing of the Olympics.

[Iggo]

13. You sweat. There's defense.

It's a sport.

[ProfessorGAC]

16. It's A Sport

First, it's a team game.

Second, i hate the "game not sport" argument. I once bowled in a PBA seniors event in Iowa. You pay an entry fee and then have to bowl competitively 12 games for 2 days, 9 games a third day and 6 games the 4th day, under pressure. Do that, and tell me it's not a sport.

Same with curling.

Poker, chess, etc are competitive games. I can buy the argument that those are not sports, but anything requiring physical effort and hand eye coordination is a sport, to me.