Updated on January 12, 2003

Life with Curlers

No, I haven't suddenly taken an interest in adding "body" to my hair. The "curlers" to which I refer are the men and women who gather on a sheet of ice to gently glide 42-pound granite "stones" towards a "bullseye" on the other end while teammates frantically sweep "brooms" in front of the advancing stone in an effort to precisely place the stone at the desired location in or around said bullseye.

First off, let me clarify that the above description is a simplification and I have knowingly avoided the use of the proper terms for the various aspects of the sport so as to not confuse and bore the non-curling readers out there. To those of you who are intimately familiar with curling (all two of you?) I apologize for insulting your intelligence.

So how did this involvement with curling all get started? I'd like to say it was a direct result of my having watched it on the Winter Olympics last year. I've heard from countless people how totally engaging it was to witness the competition. Unfortunately, NBC doesn't come in on our TV and we're not served by cable and I'm too proud to allow a satellite dish, no matter how small, spoil the aesthetics of the house, so I didn't see any of the Winter Olympics. Instead, my involvement was merely the result of looking for something different to do one Saturday afternoon when the local curling club was having an open house. Four of us "men" from the neighborhood decided to check it out, and the rest is history.

I must admit to being a bit skeptical at first, even after the open house. Typically, I seek sport and adventure in what some might call "extreme" elements - ice climbing, mountain climbing, rock climbing, and the like. To be involved in a sport in which the height of physical activity was trotting down the ice while sweeping a broom - well... let's just say I was trying to keep an open mind.

The first thing I discovered about curling is that the apparent simplicity of the sport is hugely deceptive. The fact that 70 and 80 year-olds can partake does not diminish the fact that it is not an easy game to master. What it lacks in the necessity for physical exertion it more than makes up for in the almost poetic precision necessary to place the stone. The variables involved in sending the stone down the ice and having it stop where you want it to are almost mind boggling.

First, there is the "slide" you use to launch the stone down the ice. Experienced curlers push out of the "hacks" with a splendidly smooth motion, maintaining an elegant balance in a crouched position as they glide down the ice, the stone gently held in front of them. I, on the other hand, struggle to keep from falling to one side or the other and when I do release the stone, usually flop down in a very un-photogenic finish that looks like I've just been hip-checked in a hockey game.

Then there is the ice itself. It can be "slow" or "fast" - it is typically the former at the start of the game, and becomes faster as the game progresses due to the wearing down of the "pebbling" of the ice surface. Until you actually throw a stone, you don't really know how fast the ice is. And, since it changes throughout the game, you have to try to match the velocity of your throw with the nature of the ice surface.

Then, of course, you have the "broom factor." Whenever I did see curling in the past, I must admit that I was highly skeptical as to the role that sweeping played in affecting the motion of the stone. How, after all, could the sweep of a broom possibly offer any significant effect, one way or the other, to the trajectory of a 40+ pound object moving over ice? It all seemed rather silly and inconsequential.

Curling has been played for centuries, and I suppose that if the sweeping was inconsequential, it would have been abandoned by now. Rest assured, any of you skeptics out there, that the broom does, indeed, have a profound effect. The theory, and practice, is that by sweeping in front of an advancing stone, you melt the ice in front of the stone ever so slightly so that it provides a layer of water on which the stone can hydroplane and therefore move quicker over the ice. The decision on whether or not to sweep in front of a stone is a critical one, based on the perceived speed of the stone as it is moving down the ice. If you sweep when you shouldn't be, you run the risk of causing the stone to overshoot its target and possibly ending up beyond the playing field on the opposite end altogether. If you don't sweep when you should be, chances are the stone will come to rest short of its desired target.

Typically, the "skip" - the most experienced member of the team - will call out whether to sweep or not as the stone is moving down the ice. But since he or she is at the other end of the ice, he or she doesn't always have the best notion as to the speed of the stone. So, the sweepers themselves, along with the person who launched the stone, also offer their two cents as to whether or not sweeping is necessary. We are halfway through the curling season, and only now am I becoming somewhat confident in my ability to judge whether or not a stone needs sweeping.

And finally, you also have to factor in the "curl" of the stone - the action from which the game got it's name. Rather than launch a stone in a straight projection, you attempt to make the stone curl. This is accomplished by rotating the stone slightly when you release it so that it rotates as it makes its way down the ice. If your do it correctly, the stone will curl to the left or right, depending on your rotation.

A team consists four members, and a game consists of eight "ends." During each end, each team member curls two stone. As a result, if all the stones remain in play during an end (which isn't typically true at our level of play), there will be sixteen stones vying for scoring position. Through the use of a curl, a stone can be made to move around a blocking stone and into scoring position. The curl also helps to deflect stones in certain directions when the strategy is to knock blocking stones out of the way.

Now that you know far more about curling than you ever wanted to know, I would be remiss if I didn't emphasize the fact that curling is, above all, a social sport. Tradition dictates, for example, that the winning team must buy the losing team drinks after a match. Coming into the season, with two out of our four team members new to the sport, I was confident that we would be getting "free" drinks all season long. As it has turned out, however, we've only managed to lose one match. Throughout my life, any team I've been on has been on the losing side of the equation and now, when it would pay to lose, I mange to find a team that only knows how to win.

So far, I've only been involved in matches against other "in-house" teams. A big part of the social scene, however, is participating in "Bonspiels" - competitions held against other teams. In that the Belfast Curling Club is the only one in Maine, to my knowledge, going to a Bonspiel involves a bit of traveling. The seasoned curlers in our club have endless tales to tell of Bonspiel weekends in Canada and down the eastern seaboard. Well - they can tell what they remember - it seems lifting a pint, or 20, is often a big part of the Bonspiel experience.

As the first half-season draws to a close, we are scheduled to meet an undefeated team for our last match. Sure, it would be nice to beat them and bring them down a notch, but if that doesn't happen, I can gain solace in the fact that they'll be buying the drinks. At last, the discovery of a "no lose" sport.