8-2 Games 'Round the World - 2

Curling

1. What country is curling native to?
2. What country has professional curling tournaments?
3. Are curlers paid to be professional?
4. What is the goal of the game?

Curling

Benjamin Truskin

The sport of curling originated during the cold winters of the 16th century in Scotland. This depiction of curling in art was Pieter Breugel’s “Hunters in the Snow”, painted in 1565.

From there, curling exploded in Scotland to become a recreational activity, practically being played in every locale by the 1800’s. Scotland was an ideal place to foster curling because of its long winters and many water features. Curling could be played on its lochs and marshes, which stayed frozen for the entirety of the long Scottish winters. Per the United States Curling Association’s website, as international temperatures rose, the lochs began to freeze less, which forced the game to be played as it is now, on refrigerated ice. Curling was spread by Scottish soldiers throughout the world in the 1700’s as they were stationed throughout the world. The year 1807 marked the opening of the first North American Curling Club, in Montreal. Shortly after--1832 to be exact--saw the opening of the Orchard Lake Curling Club, the first in the United States. Today the United States is home to 135 curling clubs with 15,000 recreational curlers, and over one million curlers play in 35 countries around the globe! Curling is beloved as an everyman’s game, with very few professional players, and can be enjoyed by amateurs anywhere there is ice.

Major Leagues:

Curling is not a sport that is played in a season format such as football or hockey. Curling is played in tournament format, with teams competing from tournament to tournament much like a golf player travels the world from tournament to tournament. However, the main difference is that in most curling-playing nations, the majority (if not all) of the players are amateurs, and play curling for little or no steady salary. Curling only became an official Winter Olympic sport in time for the 1998 Olympics, held in Nagano, Japan. The International Olympic Committee had also ruled to make curling official retroactively back to 1924. Curling had been played at the Olympics unofficially for no medals. The most popular curling nations, namely Canada and Scotland, do have professional circuits where tournaments are televised, but the players are not professional athletes and have everyday jobs like the rest of us.

Basic Rules:

First off, curling is played on a meticulously maintained sheet of ice which is marked. The World Curling Federation states that the playing surface must be 45.72 meters long (150 feet) by 5 meters (16.42 feet) wide, but dimensions may be reduced slightly in order to fit within an existing facility. The ice must be marked with six lines: a tee line 57 feet from the center of the rink at each end, a back line 6 feet behind the tee line at each end, a hog line 21 feet in front of the tee line at each end, a center line that runs the length of the sheet down the center, a hackline which is only 18 inches across and bisects the center line, and a courtesy line which is 4 ft closer to the center than the hog lines on each side of the rink. There are bullseyes that are centered at the intersection of the tee and center lines at each end of the sheet. The bullseye has four concentric rings with radii of 6 inches, 2 feet, 4 feet, and 6 feet. To help you better visualize this is a picture below.

Two teams play in a match, with each team being composed of four players. Players from each team take turns in a rotation sliding stones, alternating between teams, until every player has thrown two stones each. The curling stone must be no larger than 36 inches in diameter, no taller than 4.5 inches and must weigh between 38 to 44 lbs.

The goal is to have as many stones as close to the center of the bullseye as possible at the end of the round, known as an “end”. Each stone a team has closer than any of their opponents' stones is worth 1 point at the finale of an end. While a stone is in motion teams can use designated brooms to affect the ice surface, thus altering the spin and speed of the stone, “curling” it into a desired position. Teams can use their stones to bump other stones closer or further from the center of the bullseye, depending on the desired outcome. Below is a video showing how one turn of curling works in real life.

Most tournament formats are scheduled as 8 or 10 ends per match, and a minimum of 6 ends must be completed before a team is mathematically eliminated from victory, and thus can forfeit. If you want to learn more about curling, find out where you can play, or just become a basic fan of the great sport please don’t hesitate to visit USA Curling’s website.