Curling

Watching the winter Olympics on television back in the 1990s, I discovered curling, the funniest-looking sport I'd ever seen. And here at an ice rink in Austin, Texas on this Sunday morning in August, 2014, I got to see curling live, in person, for the first time in my life.

There were people all over the ice, not in ice skates, but wearing shoes. They were a range of ages, from middle-school to upper-middle-aged adults. These lozenge-shaped rocks, like granite hockey pucks the size of a small watermelon, were sailing down the rink. Two people carrying small brooms, or fabric mops, met each rock and started fast-walking backwards, sweeping the ice immediately ahead of the rock - without touching it - as it moved toward a target behind them. They were synchronized-sweeping as fast as they could! This odd activity can increase the stone's distance and affect its direction. I was entranced.

There was a fellow watching from the sidelines, and I asked if he knew anything about this sport. He told me this is the Lone Star Curling Club, of Austin. He shared with me some of the details of the game's history, how it is played, and the strategies used. The vocabulary for the game was new to me - for example, there's the skip, the button, and the guards; the hammer, the house, and the hack. 

Curling dates back at least to the late Medieval period, to the 1500s, in Scotland, and more recently, rose to great heights in Canada.

I watched quite a while. The goal of the game is to get the most points by landing your rocks as close as possible to the button - the target. This sounds like other games - from bocce ball to horseshoes. But curling is on ice, and as I watched the players in their different vigorous roles, it was as though there was more going on than points as the broom-wielders shuffled, and the heavy granite rocks with their spigot-like handles swung and rotated as they skidded across the ice. We weren't so far from the players and stones and onlookers of a distant time.