TRYING TO DESCRIBE THIS VICTORY MAKES HIM CURL.

Byline: PAUL OBERJUERGE

TURIN, Italy - I often have been accused of not knowing a thing about the sport I'm covering.

Today, I stand guilty as charged.

Consider the following:

``Coming home in the 10th, one point up with the hammer, skip Pete Fenson made a no-muss, no-fuss draw to backing in the 8-foot ring and the celebrations began before his winning stone came to rest.''

You follow that?

Me neither.

That, however, was a description of the final moment in the 8-6 victory by the U.S. over Great Britain in the men's curling bronze-medal game at the Turin Olympics.

Yes, curling. A medal for the Yanks. In curling. Whatever it is.

Have to concede, the terminology is fascinating, if impenetrable to the uninitiated, which seems to be about 99.9 percent of the human race.

``David Murdoch's freeze attempt was on target, but under-curled slightly, and Fenson could see enough of it to smack it out. Murdoch threw another freeze, a better one, but Fenson fired a missile into the rock pile and when the smoke cleared the U.S. had three.''

That was the turning point. That goes without saying. In the ``third end.''

I know more about cricket that curling. I know more about lacrosse. I know way more about judo, Greco-Roman wrestling and Nordic combined - combined - to name three exotic Olympic sports.

Curling? Nope.

It became part of the Winter Olympics at the 1998 Nagano Games. You might have seen it, since then, because they play seemingly every day of the Olympics. Teams of four (men or women) on a lane of ice, watching a large round stone slide toward some concentric circles, and a couple of people sweeping the ice in front of the rock like mad.

It has the look and feel of bowling-meets-shuffleboard, on ice, with a bit of billiards thrown in. Played by people who certainly don't look like world-class athletes.

In fact, one member of the five-man, bronze-winning U.S. team, Scott Baird, set an Olympics record as the oldest medalist. He's 55. Which gives you an idea of how physically demanding the sport is.

In recent Olympics, various sports writers have ventured out to curling, inevitably placed at some obscure little town jazzed just to be part of the Winter Games (in this case, Pinerolo), and done the gee-whiz, ain't-this- goofy, this-is-the-next-cult-sport story. Tried to fathom curling's intricacies and strategies in an afternoon. Largely without success. But it kills a day, and you're usually done in time for dinner.

Is NBC airing this? Maybe so, if the Yanks have a medal. In that case, you probably know more about curling than I do. Like, oh, the rules.

We can tell you this, from a little research: The game's origins are obscure, but it first became popular in Scotland during the 17th and 18th centuries. The Scottish diaspora took it to numerous wintry climes - including Canada, a curling power, and the upper Great Plains, places such as Bemidji, Minn., home of two members of the U.S. team.

The point of the game is to slide a lozenge-shaped, 49-pound granite stone toward the concentric rings, trying to land your stones in the center (button) of the rings and move your opponents' stones outside the rings.

Apparently this takes serious coordination and lots of strategy. (If not great aerobic capacity and bulging muscles.) Gauging the ice, demanding more or less broomwork (sweeping slightly melts the ice, allowing the stone to travel farther), calling for a certain sort of shot.

This is all coordinated by a person titled ``the skip.'' As you know.

Oh, and it's called ``curling'' because spinning the rock as it leaves the hand prompts it to curl left or right. OK. That makes sense.

Some terms: Burned stone. Biter. Hog line. House. Port. Straight ice vs. swingy ice. Soft-peeling. You figure those out, let me know.

Almost all American players come from small towns in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Unless you're from one of those towns ... it's probably all Gaelic to you. As well as me.

I've faked it in the past. Gone to this sport or that, pontificated, actually developed a clue of an idea in a reasonable amount of time and been OK with writing about it. ``You betcha, fore-checking was the difference in the game.''

But curling? Can't fake that. Won't even try.

We can let American ``skip'' Fenson tell you about it, though.

``My heart was going 100 miles an hour. I gave it to my sweepers to bring home. It's a nice shot we've done thousands and thousands of times. When I saw it curl, I knew we were OK. I felt excitement, relief.''

Who can't relate to a moment like that? Well, almost none of us can relate to it, actually. But those curling guys have medals, and the hockey team does not.

CAPTION(S):

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Photo:

(color) Joe Polo releases a stone as teammates Shaun Rojesti, left, and John Shuster brush the ice during Thursday's bronze-medal win.

Stephen Munday/Getty Images