Olympic Briefing: Curling

Press Clippings:  Curling is–surprise–one of the most popular Olympic sports,  even though it may not be one of the most widely or instantly understood. The best analogy for curling is shuffleboard. The idea is simple: slide a highly polished stone  (known as a “rock”) across a sheet of ice and into a target area. But like most things that appear simple, it can be complicated, primarily because of the strategies that are involved in posting a winning game (Curling has been called chess on ice). One of the most unique aspects of curling is the use of brooms to sweep the path ahead of the stone as it’s moving, to both ease the path and slightly influence it (it’s possible to curve the rock as it slides toward the target).  One aspect of curling makes it an ideal winter sport for our greenhouse world: you don’t need snow for the sport. You don’t even need cold weather. You don’t even need to be outside. The game is played inside on a sheet of ice and so any country could develop a curling team–even one located right along the equator (we’re a little surprised that snow-deprived countries haven’t picked up on this and trained themselves into contention).  Background info on Curling is available from our friends at Wikipedia  and, of course, we have sorted out some great videos to get you up to speed and fully informed on the sport. Here’s a great piece on learning curling from the Official Olympic Series of videos and, with that background in hand, you can then appreciate the video on the “Top Ten Curling Shots”  ,  Finally, if you really, really, really,  want deep background, a piece from the Canadian Curling Association on the making of a sheet of curling ice (tip: it’s a long one at 22 minutes) should fill your need for information on how to make your own curling venue.   One other point worth noting: curling has a rep as a highly social sport so party animals have yet another reason to take it up. 

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