Curling is a game played on ice with granite stones; in this picture, four curling sheets are shown.

The Fingask Curling Club, Perthshire, Scotland in 1854

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Curling

Curling is a team sport with similarities to darts and shuffle board, played by two teams of four players each on a rectangular sheet of carefully prepared ice. Teams take turns sliding heavy, polished granite stones down the ice towards the target (which is called the house). more...

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Two sweepers with brooms accompany each rock and use timing equipment and their best judgment along with direction from their other teammates to help direct the stones to their resting place. The complex nature of stone placement and shot selection has led some to refer to curling as "chess on ice".

Origins and history

The game of curling is thought to have been invented in late medieval Scotland, with the first written reference to a contest using stones on ice coming from the records of Paisley Abbey, Renfrewshire, in February 1541. Two paintings (both dated 1565) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder depict Dutch peasants curling—Scotland and the Low Countries had strong trading and cultural links during this period, which is also evident in the history of golf.

The game of curling was already in existence in Scotland in the early sixteenth century as evidenced by a curling stone inscribed with the date 1511, uncovered along with another bearing the date 1551, when an old pond was drained at Dunblane, Scotland. Kilsyth Curling Club claims to be the first club in the world, having been formally constituted in 1716 and is still in existence today . Kilsyth also claims the oldest purpose-built curling pond in the world at Colzium - in the form of a low dam creating a shallow pool some 100 x 250 metres in size, though this is now very seldom in condition for curling due to warmer winters.

The word curling first appears in print in 1620 in Perth, in the preface and the verses of a poem by Henry Adamson. The game was (and still is, in Scotland and Scottish-settled regions like southern New Zealand) also known as "the roaring game" because of the sound the stones make while traveling over the pebble (droplets of water applied to the playing surface). The word derives from the Scots language verb curr , which describes a low rumble (a cognate of the English language verb purr). The word does not take its name from the motion of the stones, although today a stone deviating from a straight-line trajectory is said to curl.

In the early history of curling, the rocks were simply flat-bottomed river stones that were sometimes notched or shaped; the thrower had little control over the rock, and relied more on luck than skill to win, unlike today's reliance on skill and strategy. Outdoor curling was very popular in Scotland between the sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries as the climate provided good ice conditions every winter. Scotland is home to the international governing body for curling, the World Curling Federation, Perth, which originated as a committee of the Royal Caledonian Curling Club, the mother club of curling. Today the game is most firmly established in Canada, having been taken there by Scottish emigrants. The Royal Montreal Curling Club, the oldest active athletic club of any kind in North Americawas established in 1807. The first curling club in the United States began in 1830, and the game was introduced to Switzerland and Sweden before the end of the nineteenth century, also by Scots. Today, curling is played all over Europe and has spread to Japan, Australia, New Zealand, China and Korea.