I’m an enthusiastic (but not very good) relative newbie to the sport. I started curling two years ago at the tender age of 66 after watching the curling matches during the 2014 winter Olympics and thinking “that looks easy; I could do this” and then attending a “learn to curl” session at a local club.
I decided to post this in IMHO rather than GQ because the conversation is likely to degenerate into meandering opinions. Mods, please move this if that’s a bad assumption.
(I’m neither good enough at the sport nor knowledgeable about it to start an “ask the curler” thread.)
I’ve been playing for about five years, just finished one of my best seasons. I was in a slump for about two years; couldn’t hit the broom to save my life. And then this spring I figured out a couple changes to my delivery and finished third in one of my leagues as a vice skip. Still remember one shot; skip was throwing first stones because of a bad back, I had hammer and made a sweet takeout through a very narrow port to score two. It was a thing of beauty. I’m gonna try to start skipping next year, but unfortunately I’ve aged out of the five-and-under tournaments.
sevenwood, could I ask where you are? If you’re in the northeast we might cross paths, if we haven’t already.
And agree, this is probably best in The Game Room.
I’ll jump in! I am not a regular curler, but I tried it once and had a great time. The whole family tried it, and we all had a great time.
Vacationing in Niagara Falls a few years back, we stayed on the Canadian side and had a great view of the falls. We were on the 20th floor, something like that. It was winter time, a good time to visit Niagara if you can deal with the cold. No crowds, and low rates.
We were chatting with the server at the hotel’s restaurant one morning and she mentioned NFCC: Niagara Falls Curling Club, and that they give lessons. We like trying new and different things so we all went, me and my wife, three 20-something kids, and the daughter’s boyfriend. The manager at NFCC told us when a good time to come was (I called first), not busy and all that, and he gave us an intro to the sport.
It was fun and I highly recommend it if you like trying new things. IME it is a simple sport, easy to know the rules but then very difficult to master. My son the dancer has excellent balance and strong legs, and he enjoyed kicking all of our butts.
We had a great time and it made the vacation even more memorable.
I’m in the Philadelphia area, and am a member of the Bucks County curling club.
I’ve played in friendlys with the Long Island and Plainfield curling clubs, and I’ve been in three away bonspiels (Kayser at Potomac, Dykes at Rochester, and Senior Champions at Philadelphia).
I’m in Boston, play at Broomstones. I think we’re hosting the Kayser next year; if you come, I’ll be sure to say hello.
And I’m sure we’ve met some of the same people. We had a long-time member who moved down to that area just a few years ago, and he may well be at Bucks County now. Interesting guy; has played for years and was even a judge at the Sochi Olympics.
The last Winter Olympics my wife and I looked in to trying it out, but it’s only offered sporadically in the area and always at times inconvenient for us. So, no.
If you’re on the north side of DC, The Potomac curling club isn’t that far from you. They held the Kayser event earlier this year, and it’s a really nice place full of friendly people. (If you’re south of DC, then I have no clue as to what’s nearby - google “curling clubs near me” and you should get a few hits).
My club tries to offer a couple open houses each year for new people to come and try it out. We get absolutely slammed during Winter Olympic years, and then it kinda dies down for the next three. You might have better luck if you look into it this fall.
We also rent out our club for group parties and such, and some of the members will come in to teach the newcomers how to play and guide them through a game. I’ve helped at those events and they’re a lot of fun. Can be pricey, though, but if you’re part of a company that’s looking for an interesting outing for employees then you might suggest it. Not sure if all clubs do that, but mine is quite successful at it.
Yeah, the Potomac Curling Club is pretty much the only game in town, but we can never make it to the Open Houses or breakfasts because my wife works on Saturdays.
For my birthday last year, my husband and I went to a curling lesson. I found it enormously fun (my husband maybe not so convinced) and so much harder than it looks on TV!
Sure, I’m a curler (Chicago Curling Club). I play all the time in winter. I’m not very good, but it’s lots of fun. I have just enough good nights to keep me going.
I grew up in rural Minnesota and curled a little bit growing up. Curling was actually one of the winter activities in my high school gym class. Now I live in Chicago, but I’ve never curled down here. I make it back home for a bonspiel about once a year.
I’ve never played it, but I love to watch it. I’m a retired janitor, and curling is the only sport where people cheer for a guy with a broom.
Like a million other guys, and not a few gals, I had a crush on the Canadian Women’s Skip. I heard she got a hundred thousand texted proposals for marriage. She’s happily married, so she had to turn them all down.
Jennifer Jones, by any chance? She’s gorgeous–and quite the curler too.
Like Ask, I have never curled, but I discovered the game on TV shortly after I moved to Canada and have been watching it ever since. It used to be there might be only the men’s and women’s final on TV. Starting around 1985, they telecast entire tournaments. Nowadays, there are well over 100 games a year televised. In order to keep up with them all, I have a DVR and record the entire tournaments to watch one game a day. Right now I am coming to the end of the men’s world championships and still have a couple of Grand Slam tournaments in the can.
One of the things I most like about the game is the fact that referees are nearly unnecessary. In fact, the game I watched today had one of the vanishingly few instances of a referee having to make a decision. Stone1 hit stone2 near the boards and knocked it into the boards where it rebounded and hit stone1 very very lightly. Stone looked like it might have been rolling off the rings and may have been nudged just enough to keep it counting. The referee came out and looked at the replay over and over and finally said he couldn’t change the result–the outcome was too unclear. Also the other team had a responsibility to prevent the second kiss. It pretty much decided the outcome of the game.