By: Hailey Miller, Staff Writer
Here’s to the sport of curling — the underrated activity of throwing granite rocks down a rectangular sheet of ice, and sweeping the stones as hard as possible toward the bulls-eye target at the opposite end. Seems safe, right? Supposedly, I should know a thing or two about the sport, considering that I have family who play it, but, do I pay attention to the game and know the rules inside out? Not exactly.
So, what even is curling, and how do you play it, you ask? Well, curling is a team sport where two teams play against each other. Groundbreaking, I know. Apparently, there are a few types — traditional curling, mixed doubles, and wheelchair curling. According to the World Curling Federation, traditional curling consists of four members per team, whereas mixed doubles is, you guessed it, a pair of two — and usually mixed gender. It goes without saying that the wheelchair version of the sport is, well, for those who play in a chair. Someone really needs to come up with an adapted version for those of us who stand with bad balance. And, by “someone” I mean me. Just kidding. Can you imagine me sliding down the ice with my crutches, chasing down a rock at full speed, yelling “hard!” just as I’m about to lose my balance?
To play this little thing called curling, each team member must throw a hefty granite rock that’s about the weight of a boulder all the way down the ice toward the target zone. These rocks are painted different colours to differentiate between teams. Each teammate has to throw two consecutive rocks down to the target at the other end of the ice. Now, I’m not talking about a bowling throw here. Hurling a granite rock at high speed takes great effort and skillful technique. The “thrower” crouches down into a deep lunge position, wearing a foot slider and shoes with traction for the ice. They give the rock their best thrust, and once it begins spiralling its way down the ice, two other members (from the same team) sweep the living hell out of the ice until the rock gets closer to its target. This is called the “house,” because what better way to name this marking than the home structure of a miniature-sized boulder hurling down the ice at full speed? As the stone flings toward the target, the thrower continually yells “haaaaard” until the rock stops. If you ever feel the urge to let out some steam, curling just might be the sport for you!
Team members’ positions consist of lead, second, third, and fourth. The lead throws the first two stones, and consecutively the second throws the next two, and so on and so forth until the fourth member throws the last two. There are eight throws, which are called “ends.” Opponents try to knock each others’ stones out of the target zone — or house — and by the end of each round, whichever team has their stone closest to the target and not knocked out of the house gets the point for that end. The particularly interesting thing about curling is that the players actually do the tallying of these points themselves. The team with the most points at the end of the ten ends wins the game. At least I think that’s how it goes, but don’t ask me, I’m not a pro.
