Kim Young from the Ice Holes team takes her turn at the Frontier Ice Arena during Thursday night curling.
there’s consistently a sense of ca- maraderie. “People are so friendly,” said Ran- dy Boyd, one of the founders of the local club and its first president. “Af - ter a game, people are happy to buy each other drinks: it’s tradition to toast the other team.” He and a few friends started curl- ing 15 years ago, initially playing on Twin Lakes, using metal cooking pots as stones. Then they went up to Creston, BC, to learn from the estab- lished Canadian curling community. “They pretty much adopted us,
According to the World Curl- ing Federation, the game of slid- ing stones across frozen ponds dates back to at least mid-1500s Scotland, making it slightly older than golf, another sport the Scots originated. Over the years, curling has taken hold in countries where ice abounds such as Canada and Norway. Curling has been part of the Win- ter Olympics off and on for more than a century. Next year, curlers from 10 countries will compete at the Olym- pic games in Italy. Though the stakes can be high,
three seasons ago knowing nothing other than he liked curling on TV. Now he’s hooked and happy to give pointers to anyone on everything from how to keep from slipping on the ice to building speed to effective sweeping. “We had no clue what we were do- ing at first,” he said. “We were the new team, and now there are other new teams and we want to help ev- eryone see success.” >> Plenty to enjoy As casual as curling appears, it can be competitive — and it has plenty of history behind it.
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