Norwegian curlers set to launch funky pants attack at Sochi

They're at it again.

The men of the Norwegian national curling team, who were among the top attention getters at the Vancouver Olympics in 2010, have something special planned for Sochi.

More funkadelic pants, baby.

The walking Rorschac tests have returned, although in a new, more Austin Powers-like design. Not only that, those pants have procreated and given birth to matching blazers.

Like them or not, their crazy patterned pants will be plastered all over Olympic reports and social media volleys for the next few weeks. In 2010, the pants - the pants - had their own Facebook page and collected more than 600,000 likes. While that's currently dropped to under 540,000 at the time of this post, you won't be surprised at all if that page gets a boost as the Games of Sochi draw ever closer.

But what of Twitter? A facebook page is, like, so 2010. Social media's little short-burst dumpster had yet to really, really take off when Vancouver's games were on. Now, you'd absolutely expect the pants to have their own Twitter account, right? At least one. Still waiting for that; we'll keep you updated. However, twitter was not without a frenzy of Norwegian pants on display, as my admittedly curling-heavy feed was blitzed with tweets of photos from media outlets and people far and wide:

That's right, the Norwegian curling team got to hang out with Reeeege, on Tuesday and guested on his Fox Sports Show "Crowd Goes Wild."

Beyond that, the tidal wave of admiration has begun. Dozens of media outlets, including the New York Times, have dedicated space to these new pants.

In a furious blitz on Tuesday, Tomas Ulsrud, Torgor Nergard, Christoffer Svae and Havard Vad Petersson introduced the world to the 2014 edition of their trousers, hanging out in the U.S. after taking part in last week's Continental Cup of Curling in Las Vegas.

Now, it's off to the Olympics, where they'll tangle for the top of the podium with the likes of Canada's Brad Jacobs and reigning world champion Niklas Edin, of Sweden, both of whom opt (so far) for the traditional curling look of black pants.

That's not likely to change, either, as the wild pants seem to be respected as the domain of the team that's championed the look.

If they win gold (they've got a chance, having won silver in Vancouver) those pants will grow even more in legend than they have already.

But maybe not with skip Tomas Ulsrud's wife. "She hates them," he told the New York Times.

But there are many, many converts, some of them in Canada. When Ulsrud's team played at the Players' Championship, in Toronto, last year, they enlisted the services of Alberta's Dave Nedohin to fill in for the week. Nedohin, who now curls with Kevin Martin, wore the team's array of funky pants and found a fan in his wife, Heather, who said she quite liked them, then added: "David's hot no matter what he wears."

Will curling be swept away by a flood of crazy pants? Not if World Curling Federation President Kate Caithness has her way. She told Associated Press:

We'll see what happens if the crew from Norway gets to the top of the podium. If they do, the sport of curling may see a sartorial revolution unlike any it's seen before.