"This slow-poke game, which originated in 16th-century Scotland, has captivated the Type-A world of Wall Street almost by accident. CNBC, whose market chatter is the background music on trading floors, switches to curling from Vancouver shortly after the closing bell.

And so, after a day of braying for money in the markets, traders are winding down with curling. It is, fans say, a bit of after-market therapy. Curling is so slow and drawn-out that it becomes mesmerizing.

'It is like drinking merlot,' said Douglas A. Kass, the president of Seabreeze Partners, who got hooked on Olympic curling a few years ago via CNBC."

"Let's face it: if baseball and football were in the winter, nobody would be watching," Robert Kelly, chief executive of Bank of New York Mellon, told the Times. 
He took up curling when he was growing up in Canada. He is a former "skip" -- the player who usually directs the strategy during a game --and dispenses curling tips to employees.

Like what? "What's important," Mr. Kelly deadpanned. "To win -- just like on Wall Street."

"[They] captured imaginations worldwide with their bright argyle pants, looking for all the world like sleepy college kids late for 8 a.m. Spanish class.

The Norwegian Olympic Curling Team's Pants group on Facebook is closing in on the half-million-member mark.

According to USA Today, team member Chris Svae picked out the pants, which feature the colours of the Norwegian flag. 'It's good,' Svae told the paper. 'It's bringing attention to curling back home in Norway more than usual.' 

The slacks are made by Loudmouth Golf, which has outfitted professional golfer John Daly, ex-NFLer Jim McMahon and musician-cum-golf-junkie Alice Cooper in its whimsical designs, and they are already sold out (in the harlequin pattern) at $90 ...

[When] King Harald V of Norway showed up in Vancouver ... the team was able to give him a pair of the famous pants, though the king has demurred on whether he'll actually wear them."