Curling

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The Sport of Curling:
It Takes More than Big Stones

by Leslie Strom

Winter sports that you see televised on ESPN are usually fast-moving, solitary, and dominated by the young. Only recently, thanks to the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, has the American public become aware of the sport of curling, which is... well... none of those things. It's leisurely, done in teams, and a curler only gets better with age.

For centuries, Scots and other people who live where it freezes have been slapping handles on roundy hunks of granite and heaving them across expanses of ice in a hardy game. Sports with British origins usually have one endearing social component: grub and a pint afterward. I decide to take up the sport of curling because the game seems easy enough and the local club has a nice view of the ice... from the bar.

Curiosity brings me to Seattle's Granite Curling Club for an open house on a busy Saturday. I sign a waiver, pay $5, and a club volunteer tapes duct tape on my left shoe. I am handed a push broom and sent out with three other newcomers to a cold room with five long sheets of ice. Within an hour I learn how to slide out with a rock under one hand, how to let it go, how to sweep a team member's rock, and how to hang out upstairs drinking beer. Okay, that last part is a snap. The rest of it... isn't. Ice is slick and the duct tape is slicker. I'm supposed to chase a sliding stone and vigorously sweep for some reason. There is a constant need to brush off shoes, the bottoms of the rocks, the length of ice, and on top of it all, someone goes out routinely to condition the ice like a human Zamboni with a watering can. It's a cleaner sport than I'm used to. And in spite of its suspicious resemblance to housework, I am out there having fun.

It's a silly sport full of arcane gear at first glance, but outside of paying the dues and league fee, it's not expensive to get into. In the words of Henry David Thoreau, Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes. All you have to do is look around at the curlers on league nights to see that this enterprise doesn't require more than what's in your gym bag now. Duct tape serves for a sliding shoe for several months, and all the rest of the gear can be borrowed from the club. Gloves are not necessary. The air over the ice is 40 degrees so some people wear kilts or shorts while curling. And no individual needs his or her own set of curling stones. They weigh 42 pounds each, cost $400 apiece, and there are 16 of them. You do the math. Reasonable hidden expenses are the drinks at the bar, a rink's turn bringing food for 40 people, and the irresistable urge to upgrade from a broom to a jiffy mop.

The stones are beautiful in proportion, made of pale-banded blue granite, with colorful plastic handles and a concave bottom. The ice is indescribably beautiful. It's a few inches thick, pebbled with droplets of frozen water for the stones to ride upon. The red and blue circles of the "house" are muted under a frosted glaze. The ice is surprisingly dry. In rubber gripper soles, the ice is oddly grounding considering you're standing on ice which is over miles of fluid-filled pipes that keep the ice frozen. The stones are the embodiment of happy - they clunk together solidly without taking offense when they hit, and my favorite sound of all is the low roar as they glide down 140 feet of ice.

I sign up for a Friday night league and am adopted by an experienced rink. My three teammates coach and encourage me, and we drink and eat together after our games. After a few months I've developed enough skill to appreciate the finer points of the game. For every turn throwing a stone down the ice there is at least one graceful component. For a beginner, who sprawls on the ice as the stone veers off onto the sideboard, the grace is in the stone itself, gliding along no matter what kind of artless force is applied to it. My style wavers between an accurate throw salvaged from a panicky collapse, and a perfect slide and release - where the rock goes off someplace useless. I watch my opponents, often young teenagers or seniors, as they glide out and release the stone with the finesse of a violinist, and there's nothing silly about it: it's as zen as you can get.

There are two things in the curling world that I will make a point of getting to: outdoor curling, and Spring Melt. Outdoor curling is done later in the winter on the rougher ice of canals and lakes, with stones that have a roly-poly rounded bottom. They are less precise and require a bit more oomph. And Spring Melt is the three days or so that it takes to melt and drain the playing sheets, and there is no longer a reason to be clean and meticulous. The carefully pebbled surface is now a slick of water, and the stones do what they want, a last reckless fling before they are put away... to hibernate through the summer.

FROM THE FORTIFIED STORY VAULT

Orienteering: Candidate for the Dumbest Sport Award by Robert Miller 2/2000

Pipers Without Underpants: Jean & Leslie Look for the Regiment in Enumclaw 9/99

Curling for Dummies by Bob Weeks (Author)

Men With Brooms - Canadian. Curling. Comedy. Enough said.

DUMB-ASS TRIPS
by Leslie Strom

Kays of Scotland, The real Scottish Curling Stones

The Curling School teaches you everything you need to know about curling except to not put your tongue on the ice.

Canada Curling Stone Company

Winter sports that you see televised on ESPN are usually fast-moving, solitary, and dominated by the young. Only recently, thanks to the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, has the American public become aware of the sport of curling, which is... well... none of those things. It's leisurely, done in teams, and a curler only gets better with age.

For centuries, Scots and other people who live where it freezes have been slapping handles on roundy hunks of granite and heaving them across expanses of ice in a hardy game. Sports with British origins usually have one endearing social component: grub and a pint afterward. I decide to take up the sport of curling because the game seems easy enough and the local club has a nice view of the ice... from the bar.

Curiosity brings me to Seattle's Granite Curling Club for an open house on a busy Saturday. I sign a waiver, pay $5, and a club volunteer tapes duct tape on my left shoe. I am handed a push broom and sent out with three other newcomers to a cold room with five long sheets of ice. Within an hour I learn how to slide out with a rock under one hand, how to let it go, how to sweep a team member's rock, and how to hang out upstairs drinking beer. Okay, that last part is a snap. The rest of it... isn't. Ice is slick and the duct tape is slicker. I'm supposed to chase a sliding stone and vigorously sweep for some reason. There is a constant need to brush off shoes, the bottoms of the rocks, the length of ice, and on top of it all, someone goes out routinely to condition the ice like a human Zamboni with a watering can. It's a cleaner sport than I'm used to. And in spite of its suspicious resemblance to housework, I am out there having fun.

It's a silly sport full of arcane gear at first glance, but outside of paying the dues and league fee, it's not expensive to get into. In the words of Henry David Thoreau, Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes. All you have to do is look around at the curlers on league nights to see that this enterprise doesn't require more than what's in your gym bag now. Duct tape serves for a sliding shoe for several months, and all the rest of the gear can be borrowed from the club. Gloves are not necessary. The air over the ice is 40 degrees so some people wear kilts or shorts while curling. And no individual needs his or her own set of curling stones. They weigh 42 pounds each, cost $400 apiece, and there are 16 of them. You do the math. Reasonable hidden expenses are the drinks at the bar, a rink's turn bringing food for 40 people, and the irresistable urge to upgrade from a broom to a jiffy mop.

The stones are beautiful in proportion, made of pale-banded blue granite, with colorful plastic handles and a concave bottom. The ice is indescribably beautiful. It's a few inches thick, pebbled with droplets of frozen water for the stones to ride upon. The red and blue circles of the "house" are muted under a frosted glaze. The ice is surprisingly dry. In rubber gripper soles, the ice is oddly grounding considering you're standing on ice which is over miles of fluid-filled pipes that keep the ice frozen. The stones are the embodiment of happy - they clunk together solidly without taking offense when they hit, and my favorite sound of all is the low roar as they glide down 140 feet of ice.

I sign up for a Friday night league and am adopted by an experienced rink. My three teammates coach and encourage me, and we drink and eat together after our games. After a few months I've developed enough skill to appreciate the finer points of the game. For every turn throwing a stone down the ice there is at least one graceful component. For a beginner, who sprawls on the ice as the stone veers off onto the sideboard, the grace is in the stone itself, gliding along no matter what kind of artless force is applied to it. My style wavers between an accurate throw salvaged from a panicky collapse, and a perfect slide and release - where the rock goes off someplace useless. I watch my opponents, often young teenagers or seniors, as they glide out and release the stone with the finesse of a violinist, and there's nothing silly about it: it's as zen as you can get.

There are two things in the curling world that I will make a point of getting to: outdoor curling, and Spring Melt. Outdoor curling is done later in the winter on the rougher ice of canals and lakes, with stones that have a roly-poly rounded bottom. They are less precise and require a bit more oomph. And Spring Melt is the three days or so that it takes to melt and drain the playing sheets, and there is no longer a reason to be clean and meticulous. The carefully pebbled surface is now a slick of water, and the stones do what they want, a last reckless fling before they are put away... to hibernate through the summer.