The secret is out!
The latest version of the Norwegian Curling Team Pants is set to hit the ice in gorgeous Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy this Saturday.
The event, of course, is the 2010 Capital One World Men's Curling Championship. And the originators of the Pants Craze, Thomas Ulsrud's Olympic silver medallists from Norway, open their campaign at 14:00 CET against Scotland's Warwick Smith.
The only question is: will it be the blue and white checkered pattern for Game 1, or the swirling multicoloured... flowers?
"I just follow the fashion police," is all that skip Ulsrud has to say, nodding to teammate Christoffer Svae. The burly second thrower (second from right in the John Hauge photo at left) is the one who found the pants, made his teammates wear them during the first Olympic practice in Vancouver... and the rest is history.
"I must admit that when I saw 10 cameras following us in that first practice, I thought: 'This was a good idea then, Christoffer,' " Svae told Norway's Aftenposten.
The blue and white pants were worn by Norway's junior men's team at the World Juniors in Champery, Switzerland earlier in March. Norway's Paralympic wheelchair curlers then followed up with a tealish-blue and white pattern in Vancouver, plus Ulsrud's original Olympic design, and of course the Norwegian women's team went full-on bonkers with a wild, spotty "disco" pattern last week in Saskatchewan (photo can be seen here).
As reported a few weeks ago on The Curling NewsTwitter feed, Team Norway has since inked a sponsorship deal with Loudmouth Golf, the U.S. manufacturers of the pants.
Stay tuned to The Curling News for more info on Team Ulsrud, the Cortina Worlds and so much more in this fantastic 2010 curling season.
It ain't over yet, folks!
[Aftenposten photo by John Hauge. Click to increase size]