1st October 2007
Hi all,
Once every four years the sport of Curling comes to prominence, as the Winter Olympics highlights teams of four people pushing stones down a sheet of ice and brushing manically in a seemingly random fashion. For some reason I've always thought it would be fun to try, and last Friday night I got the chance to try it myself.
It might not be the conventional idea for what to do for someone's birthday, but a meal followed by Curling worked pretty well for my friend Douglas. After we'd had time to digest our meal we were taken to a classroom next to the ice rink, where we were given a run-through on a few of the basics. We were also given a plastic bag each, which people without specialist footwear (i.e. everyone) was to wear on their leading foot when delivering a stone. Cue lots of jokes about Tesco Green Clubcard points. Meanwhile Jim (our main instructor) gave some examples of some usual stretches, at which point everyone was looking at someone else as if to say, "There's no way I can do that."
From there we set off to the ice itself, grabbing a broom each and taking care to step on the ice, stop, and then walk normally as instructed. No falls to speak of at that point.
Now it was time to familiarise ourselves with the stones. They each weigh 20 kilos, or 44 pounds in old money. Even if you use a 14-pound bowling ball that's a third of the weight of one of these things, and as we quickly found out these things can move. The first drill was for Jim to push a stone in our direction to make sure we could stop it successfully with our brooms. This reminds me a little of bit of the drill you'd have at school where one person would have a cricket bat, standing in the middle of a ring of people taking catching practice. You didn't want to look stupid then, and you don't want to look stupid now. I learn from someone else to hold the broom with both hands, and then it is my turn. It's coming straight for my feet! Stand firm, brace... easy. And back to Jim. Nice.
From there we had to practice throwing our stones (insert your own Beavis-style laugh here). This is where you get a new level of respect for professional Curlers, as they make it look simple. If you're right-handed like me, you put your right foot on what looks a bit like a starting block, but is actually called a hack. Holding onto a stone you move your left foot forward, then back, and then begin to slide forward. At an appropriate moment you let go of the stone, and (if you're anything like the rest of us) fall over because you haven't got anything to offset your balance any longer.
With the tricky bit practiced we then set about the fun bit. Erm, did I say fun bit? I meant to say the hard bit, as in hard work! Given the length (i.e. lack of it) of the broom handles sweeping requires a fair bit of bending and an awful lot of oomph. Now try doing that while walking on ice and co-ordinating with someone else sweeping from the other side and you've got a recipe for disaster. I think you know where this is heading.
Of course practice is all well and good, but when you've learnt everything it is time to prove just how much you know. And in the case of my team-mates Louise, Dave, Ryan and I our first go showed we didn't know that much as we didn't get a single stone in the house. Fortunate our opponents didn't get anything either, so we had a blank end and I would get a second opportunity to skip. I'd recommend this for anyone going Curling for the first time as you avoid most of the hard work (sweeping) and get to shout a lot at other people. If you got a complimentary packet of Benson and Hedges with each game it would probably be my Dad's ideal vocation.
At our second end Dave and Ryan decided to stop making everyone else look good and suddenly revealed themselves to be world-class curlers, getting us not just one but two points. Meanwhile I realised that this was probably the first vaguely competitive activity my daughter had seen me take part in, so it was probably a good idea to be half-proficient at it. As we started a third end against different opponents (made up mostly of Lucy McCabe's family) we were up against it, as they put one of their early stones right next to the target.
With Ryan now serving as skip I was on sweeping duty as Dave took aim. He pushed off and got his stone away in the right direction and with pretty good weight. Louise let it go and I was sweeping it alone, right up until I slipped. Now the stone was heading towards my legs as I laid across the ice. Lift! The stone swept underneath my legs, carried on, knocked our opponent's stone out of the way and settled in perfect position. "Yes!" I shouted from my prone position on the ice.
We ended up with an overall total of three points, the most of any team, and as a result all earned tiaras for our efforts. The lesson? I have no idea, but I still enjoyed the night, in spite of the headgear I ended up leaving in.
Have a good week!
Tony
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