The Best American Olympic Athlete: John Shuster

My favorite athlete of the Winter Olympics games was curling skip John Shuster.

American Athlete

Unlike these guys who train over and over to skate fast or swim fast and end up with weird looking physiques, Shuster looks like the average American. In fact, I think he showed us most what it would be like for a regular American to be thrown out onto the world stage to compete. He’s just a guy with a regular job who likes to play a sport in his spare time and ended up with all the world watching. And while anyone knows how to win, the best measure is knowing how to comport yourself when you lose, and Shuster and his team kept a sense of humor even after Olympic medals were basically out of reach. Shuster even bet a teammate $20 he wasn’t going to be able to make a shot (he won), and they really looked like they had fun out there as opposed to people like the Chinese who would probably be executed for failure.

So a sincere thank you to John Shuster and the rest of his team, Jason Smith, John Benton, Jeff Isaacson, and Chris Plys, for really representing America out on the ice.

18 Comments

  1. I know John. He’s a great guy and a better curler. Most of the criticism leaved against the team was wholly undesired especially since most of the loudest won’t know how to throw a rock without falling and breaking something. Next time I see him I’ll buy him a beer for sure I only have one problem with him in that is his team kicked our miserable asses the last time we played against him.

    [It was hard not to go on about all those missed shots, but he and his team did get three of the top teams into the world to a point where he just had to get one more stone on the button to win. -Ed.]

  2. Aahh, I remember when I was a boy, and my dad would take me to the curling events. It was always a great day, sitting with dad enjoying a truly American event. As they would say, there’s nothing like apple pie, Chevrolet and cur…umm…oh, wait…no, that was baseball. Never mind.

  3. I’m more for Chris Plys myself, but now that I think about it Shuster really was pretty good. Screw everything but curling and hockey though, let’s drop out of the Olympics in every other sport and just focus on curling and hockey.

  4. Seems like a nice guy. Does he go back to his janitor job now that the Olympics are done? 8)

    Screw everything but curling and hockey though, let’s drop out of the Olympics in every other sport and just focus on curling and hockey.

    Damn Canadians…

  5. I watched curling for like 5 whole minutes, by mistake….and it was women….and there was this realllllly hot Canadian babe…
    so I’m still not gay. But seriously, don’t they feel foolish doing that in front of millions hundreds of people watching on tv? I sure would.

  6. “I would think you’d want to keep the Biathlon, just in case a James Bond chase scene breaks out.”

    We can keep biathlon, but we don’t need to fund it or anything. All I need is some cross country skiing lessons and I think we’re set.

    “I watched curling for like 5 whole minutes, by mistake….and it was women….and there was this realllllly hot Canadian babe…”

    Cheryl Bernard I’m guessing, the Canadian skip. Yeah, you’re right. She was really talented, she did a great job, and she looked good while she was at it.

  7. The best thing about olympic curling is to tune in expecting to get a laugh at the expense of MSNBC’s resident loon Olberman only to see he has been preempted for guys madly brushing ice in front of an obese hockey puck!

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