I must confess I love curling. And I am talking about the sport. Something I discovered around the time of this year’s Winter Olympics is that most people I know find curling to be extremely boring, if they have even watched a round of curling at all. Many of their views, I dare say, reflect a lack of basic understanding about this unique sport, but that’s not surprising.

Having grown up in Los Angeles, I do not know many people who compete in ice-related sports – unlike those who hail from places like Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota, where most U.S. curlers are from. Regardless, let me share why I’m passionate about curling.

At this point, you may be wondering, what exactly is curling?

Honestly, I wish I knew a better way to describe the sport in depth. Some call this strategic competition “chess on ice,” but it more resembles shuffleboard on ice. Two teams of four take turns sliding 44-pound granite stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area – called the “house” – that is segmented into four circles. The goal is to get the stones closest to the center of the target
for points.

The art of curling also involves science. Players can change the path of their stone after it has been “thrown.” To do so, they must vigorously sweep the ice in front of the stone with special brooms that warm the ice and reduce friction. This allows the stone to travel farther and straighter along its path. By adding a small amount of spin, skilled players can make their stone “curl” along a curving path to block an opponent’s stone or knock it out of the way.

Deciding when, where, and how hard to sweep is part of the sport’s strategy – and why there’s so much enthusiastic yelling as players compete, sometimes for as long as three hours!

The origins of curling date back to 16th -century Scotland (where golf was invented about the same time.) Despite being an old sport, curling can seem rather pointless and deceptively simple to untrained eyes. I count myself among those who once thought, “That seems easy enough,” or asked, “How is this even a sport?”

Back during the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, my brother and I became fascinated by curling and decided to find a way to try it out. We booked a lesson down at the Southern California Curling Center (which has since closed) and drove 30 minutes to what seemed like the middle of nowhere for an hour-long lesson.

Our curling lesson was super fun, but we discovered that the sport is not for the weak. It takes a lot of balance to throw the curling stone or to sweep the stone into place. And it is safe to say that my brother and I were both extremely sore the next day. In hindsight, I also learned not to doubt the skill of Olympic athletes, no matter how easy a sport looks. (Bobsledding, for example, certainly cannot be easy.)

I continue to enjoy watching curling competitions. They are extremely meditative and relaxing to view or even to just have on in the background on television. I hope I have brought to your attention a possibly new sport to watch, play, or research. Step out of your comfort zone to learn something new – or, as they say in the sport of curling, give it a spin!

And take nothing for granite.