Project Canadianization: Learning to Curl

Posted by Cynical Sarah on March 5, 2008

A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to increase my Canadian quotient. My sister-in-law found some free curling lessons at a community center.

Initially, I wasn’t too interested – after all, I’m American and what would an American do with the knowing this “sport”? Eventually I caved in and decided to go because I didn’t want to just sit at home all day, and it was as good an alternative as any.

So Helper Troy (not so willingly) and I headed out to find our way to a community in Coquitlam. For those of you not familiar with the Vancouver area, that’s like the outer reaches of the galaxy – and public transit isn’t exactly a warp-speed mode of travel.

Long story short, the trip was long, but we made it to the center. In fact some of the transit mishaps that took place along the way (the SIL and her guy friend missed the stop and ended up having to get off the bus and taxi back to the community center) worked in our favour. Most of the people who had already arrived ended up in a large group lesson, while the four of us got an instructor and curling lane all to ourselves.

(By the end of our time there, I’m sure our instructor was happy to have kept us separated from the pack as well.)

Curling actually turned out to be pretty fun. I had the advantage of having at least seen the game played during the last winter Olympic games, so I wasn’t completely clueless going in. I knew what the sport was in general; I just didn’t know how it was played, or what the point was, how it was scored, or what the heck those brooms were for.

Now I know, the point is to slide a rock down the ice to try to be the closest to the center of the home at the other end. Probably the best way to describe the scoring is that only the stones closer to the center of the home than the other team’s stones count. Kind of like bocce scoring – not that that helps most people either.

The scoring was actually the last thing we learned, though. Instead we started with the sliding of the rocks. It’s a bit hard to describe what it takes to throw a rock. You start out in a sort of squatting position with a rock in one hand a broom tucked under your other to help with balance and you rock back and slide forward so that you’re on one foot with the other trailing behind you.

It sounds simple, but it’s all about balancing on that one leg mostly as you’re sliding down the ice and trying to guide a rock to where you want it. All I can say is thank god for yoga or I’d probably have a serious groin injury or a whole lot of bruises. As it was, I still managed to biff it once, and courtesy of the SIL, there’s a lovely picture to prove it – which will not be making an appearance here.

Once we all got some rock throwing experience, we took turns sweeping for each other as well. Guess what, there really is a purpose to those people running in front of the stone and sweeping the ice, too. It looks silly but to sort of quote our teacher for the day, “a good sweeper can get the stone a lot further down the ice on a lighter throw.”

So here’s the deal with the sweepers. The ice isn’t smooth like that of a hockey rink. It’s actually sort of textured and pebbled, making it still slidey, but giving more resistance to the rocks. The sweepers job is to use the brooms to help melt a path in front of the stone giving it less resistance and allowing it to travel further if necessary.

We never got around to playing a real game, but we had a lot of fun learning the different elements and practicing. I even managed to get the stone right in the home on my first throw, though I didn’t manage to repeat that feat on any other throws. I was more interested in not repeating my fall than I was in trying to adjust my speed up or down for throwing. Sorry curling lady if you read this – but I didn’t actually do much to follow your harder or softer throwing advice.

Helper Troy did a much better job of following direction. I’m sure it’s because he’s naturally Canadian (not because he had done it one time before) that he was much better at it than I was.

I’ll have to find some distinctly American activity for us to do next time. Give myself the edge.

- Sarah L. Polson

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