HARRRRRD!!!

I tried curling this weekend. I didn't get to see any curling during the Olympics, but had seen it on the CBC when I was living in Michigan. But during the SLC games, a simple web search turned up four curling clubs within 30 minutes of home. During my research I found that the Chicago Curling Club (based in Northbrook, actually) had a "just do it" open house over President's Day weekend -- when I was in Boston. But apparently over 100 people showed up, so they quickly scheduled similar events for 3/3 and 3/10.



People turned out in similar numbers yesterday -- about 32 in my group at 1:00(so everyone was on the ice at the same time), and then over 60 at 3:00, who had to be split up as the club has four sheets. Seemed to be a fairly even mix of men and women, mostly under 40, and a good number of kids. We spent the first part of the session getting our footing, practicing throws, and working on delivery (our group didn't get up to sweeping). We watched a brief instructional video, and then we split into teams and we played a two-end (inning) game.



Curling ice is different from skating ice in that it's "pebbled" -- think of bumpy raised glass. Still slippery, but you can run along and sweep without much uncertainty. You wear a slider -- a slip-on teflon sole -- on one foot when throwing. My delivery isn't terrible in terms of mechanics; my worst problems are shifting balance from my hack foot to the sliding foot, and then gripping the rock too tightly; I'm relying on it too much for stabilization. What I have no grasp of is controlling the stone's weight (speed) -- each throw felt the same, so my rocks either didn't cross the hog line and were removed from play, or zipped straight through the house and were again removed from play. This was a common problem for most of my team, so we didn't have to sweep much. We ended up losing, 3-0. We had a good rock in play during the second end which would have tied the game, but the opposing skip threw a perfect take-out and they scored with two rocks in the outer ring of the house.



Surprisingly I'm not too sore, though had I played a full 8-end game I'd probably be feeling it. I signed up for most of the remaining March events for $25, and we'll see how I like it from there.