Curl for the Cure

Last Saturday, March 20th, we tried a sport that many of you, dear readers (all 6 of you according to the poll in the sidebar!), may not have heard of before: curling. I hadn't heard of it until shortly before the Winter Olympics arrived, and when Canadians first described it to me I thought it sounded totally bizarre!

Curling is a winter team sport, played on ice and related to bowls and shuffleboard. I have taken the following description of curling from Wikipedia to save you from any attempt of mine to describe it in my own words:

"Two teams, each of four players, take turns sliding heavy, polished granite stones across the ice curling sheet towards the house, a circular target marked on the ice. Each team has eight stones. The purpose is to accumulate the highest score for a game, points being scored for the stones resting closest to the centre of the house at the conclusion of each end, which is completed when both teams have thrown all of their stones. A game may consist of ten or eight ends.

The curler can induce a curved path by causing the stone to slowly turn as it slides, and the path of the rock may be further influenced by two sweepers with brooms who accompany it as it slides down the sheet, using the brooms to alter the state of the ice in front of the stone. A great deal of strategy and teamwork goes into choosing the ideal path and placement for each situation, and the skills of the curlers determine how close to the desired result the stone will achieve."

We have had a few conversations with friends recently in which we discussed our desire to try curling, but this opportunity came along through Ben's work: a charity "Curl for the Cure" event. It was at the Vancouver Curling Club, next door to the venue for the Olympic and Paralympic curling events. The day we went curling was the last day of the Paralympic curling events, and as we arrived at the venue there were Canadian fans spilling into the surrounding streets, leaving the wheelchair curling gold medal game that Canada had just won!

Here are some photos from Curl for the Cure...











Below is a video compilation we made of our introduction to curling. Ben's little mishap at the start actually caused a bit of damage to the ice... but you can see by the end of the night he had improved significantly! I never got the hang of getting a proper "slide" at the start, but I did better at getting the stones to end up in the point scoring area. You don't see much sweeping in these clips because most of them were taken when we were mucking around at the end (we enjoyed it so much that we were the last two people left on the ice!)... during our two real games we were too busy sweeping to video!

And just so you don't go away thinking that anything you just saw bears any resemblance to what curling is meant to look like, click here to see how pro curlers curl!

In a nutshell, we had a lot of fun and have to admit that curling is a whole lot harder than it looks!! I thought it was a rather laughable sport until I tried it... and then I had sore muscles (thighs and shoulders!) for the next three days, so I have a lot more respect for it now. :P

Curling rocks... pun intended!