It’s a New Definition for Success in U.S.

Snowboarding? We rock! Curling? We roll!

We also shred, sweep, fakie, freeze, bonk, cab, clean and tail slide with the best of them. But you already knew that.

Monday at the Olympics, the United States unleashed its snowboarders and curlers on the world. Results? Pretty rad. The U.S. snowboarders swept the men’s halfpipe medals--gold to Ross Powers, silver to Danny Kass, bronze to J.J. Thomas. At the same time, on an ice sheet in Ogden, the U.S. men’s curling team swept, and swept some more, until it had defeated reigning world champion Sweden, 10-5--a result that stunned the curling world and had halfpipers in Park City saying, “Huh?”

Snowboarding and curling. The so-called pastimes of Generation X and Generation Zzzzzz, as different in style and intensity as skate punk and polka, McTwists and McMuffins, beer keggers and ... well, beer keggers.

The events entered the Olympic arena side by side in 1998, much to the bewilderment of either sport.

Snowboarders wondered what they were doing in the same Games with a bunch of old people with odd accents armed with strange brooms. Curlers wondered what they were doing sharing the same Olympic village with a bunch of young hellions with odd accents armed with strange tunes. First time out in Nagano, both sports experienced growing pains. The ’98 snowboarding competition went up in a cloud of smoke, all the giant slalom and halfpipe results overshadowed by what Canadian gold medalist Ross Rebagliati did or didn’t have in his halfpipe. (A drug test said it was marijuana.) Canada also incurred a curling disaster when its favored men’s team, unsettled in a faraway land where fish is eaten raw instead of pickled or smoked, fell apart in the final and was routed by Switzerland, 9-3.

Great curling squads, like great armies, travel on their stomachs.

Second time around, the Americans, as is their tendency, have elbowed their way to the front of the pack, showing everyone else how it’s supposed to be done. After Kelly Clark’s victory in the women’s halfpipe Sunday, the U.S. men’s sweep gave the United States four of the six 2002 halfpipe medals.

And the U.S. men’s curling team, according to a U.S. men’s curling press release, “stole a single in the second when Sweden’s last-rock draw for one was just slightly heavy.... The dramatic seventh was set up by vice skip Mike Schneeberger, who made a raise takeout and rolled the shooter over to guard another U.S. rock. Then came [Sweden’s Peja] Lindholm’s draw, and eventually the counterpunch.”

We’re talking two sports and two different languages here.

But, since we rule the world in both, the least we can do as new diehard snowboarding and curling fans is learn the subtle variances between the two.

STONE

Curling: The round, handled granite playing piece. The focus of everyone’s intense attention.

Snowboarding: What friends allegedly tried to do to Canada’s Rebagliati during a pre-Olympic party in 1998. Rebagliati went on to win the gold medal in men’s parallel giant slalom, then had his medal stripped after testing positive for marijuana, then had his medal returned after successfully appealing on the grounds that marijuana is not a “performance-enhancing” drug. Unless, of course, the event is parallel giant pizza consumption.

ROCK

Curling: Another name for the stone.

Snowboarding: To snowboard successfully. As in, “Dude, you rocked!” Also: The form of music preferred by snowboarders--although (very important here) absolutely none of that stuff preferred by snowboarders’ older brothers and sisters. Birth of the genre: Circa 1999. Old-school practitioners: Green Day, Blink 182, Jimmy Eat World. Rolling Stones? Huh? That’s a curling thing, right?

BONK

Snowboarding: The act of hitting an object with the snowboard.

Curling: The act of hitting a spectator with the stone.

AIR

Snowboarding: Leaving the ground by jumping or leaping.

Curling: That stuff on the top of a Canadian curler’s ‘ead.

FREEZE

Curling: A stone thrown and played to come out to rest against another rock.

Snowboarding: What 30,000 spectators did when they came out to Park City Monday to root for the Americans against the world.

SKIP

Curling: The player who usually throws stones last, directs the game and determines the team’s strategy.

Snowboarding: What Norwegian snowboarder Terje Hakonsen, the Michael Jordan of the halfpipe, did to the 1998 and 2002 Winter Olympics. Snowboarding, says Terje, is “about fresh tracks and carving powder and being yourself and not being judged by others.”

OLLIE

Snowboarding: Method to obtain air without a jump by first lifting the front foot, then lifting the rear foot as you spring off the tail of the board.

Curling: Curler from Sweden.

EAT

Snowboarding: To wipe out.

Curling: To pass the time before, after and during a curling competition.

POP TART

Snowboarding: Airing backward to forward without rotation.

Curling: Judging by appearances, a popular training-table food.

STALEFISH

Snowboarding: Type of air achieved when the rear hand grabs the heel edge of the board behind the rear leg and between the bindings while the rear leg is straightened.

Curling: Bad pregame meal.

CANADIAN BACON

Snowboarding: Type of air achieved when the rear hand reaches behind the rear leg to grab the toe edge of the board between the bindings while the rear leg is straightened.

Curling: Good pregame meal.