Utah Statesman Article from 9/14/2005

Cache Valley Stone Society hosts two clinics

By: Ben Walker

Utah State students joined others on Monday evening at the Eccles Ice Center for a curling clinic.

Curling is a game in which two four-person teams take turns sliding 40-pound granite stones across an ice sheet towards a target called “the house.”

Doug Jackson-Smith led a discussion about curling for first-timers, then took them onto the ice for some practice and pointers.

Jackson-Smith is the Instructor for USU’s one-credit curling course. He is also president of the Cache Valley Stone Society. The society has been around for three years and was inspired by the Salt Lake Olympics.

“We watched the Olympics in 2002 and got excited about it,” Jackson-Smith said. “We thought we could try to get curling going in Logan since we had the new ice sheet.”

Five USU students came to the clinic, including senior accounting major Colt Miller. Miller discovered curling while serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Canada.

“Up in Canada, in every town, there’s a curling club and a curling hall,” Miller said. “We just went one day and thought, ‘this is cool!’”

“It’s easy to learn and it’s hard enough to master that it’s fun to come out every week,” Jackson-Smith said.

…

-benwalker@cc.usu.edu

Media Credit: Ryan Talbot

And another Utah Statesman article 9/24/03

Insiders Perspective

Courtesy Utah State Universities Hard News Cafe

http://www.hardnewscafe.usu.edu/sports/022307_curling.html

Curling in Cache Valley: Fun with ice, brooms and 40-pound stones
By Devin Felix

February 23, 2007 | A young woman shrieks and sprawls across frozen ground, sending a 40-pound slab of granite and a wooden broom skidding off in opposite directions. A middle-aged man glides nimbly by, gazing intently before him. Two children shuffle quickly past, vigorously scrubbing the ground in front of them with brooms.

There’s something different about tonight at the Eccles Ice Arena.

There’s something different about every Monday night: the sport of curling.

When it comes to sports on ice, there’s more going on in Logan than you might think. On one end of the spectrum are the members of the USU hockey team: aggressive and potentially brutal, with unnaturally broad shoulders, steel blades on their feet and potential weapons in their hands. On the other side of the spectrum are the figure skaters: sleek and graceful, their craft equal parts sport and art form.

And somewhere in between (or maybe on some other spectrum entirely), you have the curlers: some little children, some men on the upper end of middle age, and a wide assortment in between.

Every Monday night, members of the Cache Valley Stone Society, the Utah State curling class, the USU Curling Club and various newcomers from the public assemble at the Eccles Ice Arena to participate in a sport quite unlike anything else that occurs on the ice.

To those unfamiliar with curling, a first encounter might look a little strange. A curler slides along the ice squatting on one foot while the other leg trails behind. In one hand he holds a short broom against the ice for balance, and in the other he holds a handle attached to a 40-pound granite stone. Then, rather than pushing the stone with his arms, he simply lets go of it, perhaps slightly adjusting its course, allowing the momentum of his slide to carry it across the ice toward its destination.

As soon as he lets go, two of his teammates start vigorously sweeping the ice in front of the stone, while a fourth teammate shouts directions. Once the stone arrives, there may be shouts of celebration or solemn looks of concern.

Though most people in Utah are at least somewhat familiar with such a scene, few understand exactly what goes on in curling.

“Curling is something that no one else does. It’s something that everyone has heard about, but no one knows anything about,” said Jeff Carr.

Carr is a USU student who started curling a year ago when he and a group of friends enrolled in the USU curling class together. They wanted to find something fun and uncommon to do together and noticed the university offered the class, Carr said. During that semester their skills improved and they enjoyed themselves so much that they decided to form the USU Curling Club and start competing in tournaments. The first tournament they attended was in Ogden, on the same ice where the curling competition of the Winter Olympics was held in 2002.

“We had only been curling for about two months at that time, and there were some pretty big teams there,” Carr said. “We won one game. We were pretty happy about that actually.”

The club has between 12 and 15 members, with some participating more frequently than others, he said. They are seeking to raise enough money to compete in a national tournament in Chicago later this year, Carr said.

The USU Curling Club is affiliated with the Cache Valley Stone Society, also known as the Cache Valley Curling Club. Utah State sociology professor Douglas Jackson-Smith was one of those who gave curling its start in Cache Valley, and is currently the president of the club. He said he watched the sport during the 2002 Winter Olympics and decided that he wanted to get involved. He and several others began researching the sport, borrowed some equipment from curlers in Ogden and eventually began competing in tournaments. Now his family is involved as well, including his 8-year-old daughter.

“Curling is a pretty easy sport,” said Jackson-Smith. “It can be done at any age, and anyone can do it.”

And it certainly seemed that anyone and everyone were trying it out Jan. 22. About 25 new curlers were in attendance, including members of the Utah State curling class. Like Carr and his friends, many of the class members signed up because they were looking for something different and new. “I’m from Kentucky, so if I learn the sport of curling I’ll be in a major minority when I go home,” said USU curling class member Austin Render, who joined the class with a group of friends.

Several members of the public were also in attendance to take advantage of a one-night curling clinic being offered at the arena. The clinic participants and class members gathered in a room to hear Jackson-Smith lay out the basics of curling.

A game of curling pits two four-member teams against each other. Each player has two stones, and members from each team alternate throwing (or, more accurately, sliding) their stones until each team has thrown all eight. The goal is to get the stones closer to the center of a target (called the “house”) at the other end of the ice than the opponents do. Stones in the house can be knocked out of play by an opponent’s well-thrown stone, and teams can deliberately place stones to block their opponents’ path.

As the stones travel across the ice, two other team members vigorously sweep the ice in front of the stone with curling brooms(the sweeping actually looks more like scrubbing). Sweeping the ice creates friction to melt the ice slightly, causing the stone to travel farther. The stones naturally “curl” in one direction when thrown, and sweeping also reduces how much they will curl.

Curling ice is different from the ice used for skating sports, because it is covered with millions of tiny ice “pebbles,” which make the stones travel farther. As Jackson-Smith laid out the basics, a man with a tank on his back walked back and forth across the ice spraying a fine mist of heated water droplets, which froze instantly upon contacting the ice, giving it the “pebbled” texture necessary for the sport of curling.

Curling is at least 450 years old, and originated in Scotland, according to a website of the International Olympic Committee. The oldest known curling stones are believed to date from the year 1511, and the first known written reference to the game is from 1541. Originally, participants used stones from the bottoms of streams and played on frozen ponds. In the centuries since then, standardized weights, dimensions and rules have been developed, and curling has grown to become an international sport played by millions. It is particularly popular in Canada, where 872,000 people participate and more than 3.5 million watch it on TV, according to the Canadian Curling Association.

When Jackson-Smith’s tutorial had finished, club members and newcomers spread out across the ice, carrying dozens of circular, flat-bottomed, 40-pound stones with red or yellow handles. Novices divided into groups that dispersed across the ice to separate ends of the five curling courts where more experienced club members instructed them on proper throwing and sweeping technique.

The first step of throwing is putting the slider on your foot, says Eddie Rubey, a club member who was directing a group of first time curlers who were there as a group activity for their LDS student ward. The slider is like a thin sandal with a Teflon-coated sole that is strapped onto the bottom of one shoe. It’s so slippery that Jackson-Smith suggests beginners just stand on it so they can jump off easily to regain balance. Most participants wear normal street shoes, which usually have enough traction to keep a person from falling on the ice, and use a slider when it’s their turn to throw the stone. Serious curlers wear curling shoes. Curling shoes look like a normal pair of shoes, but one of them has a rubber sole that can be removed to reveal a Teflon-coated sliding surface.

Once you’ve put the slider, you take a broom in your left hand and tuck one end against your body and the other end on the ice for balance, Rubey said. Then take the stone in your right hand and put your right foot on the “hack.” Lean back slightly, then push off, keeping low to ground as you slide on your left foot and trail your right leg behind you for balance, he said. Make sure you let go of the stone before you get to the “hog line” or it’s a foul. All right, now go for it.

One by one, students step up, crouch down, with one foot on the hack (a sort of stepping pad embedded in the ice) and push off. Many don’t need to worry about passing the hog line (a red line about 30 feet from the hack) because they lose balance and fall after several feet. People laugh and shout words of encouragement. Sliders, brooms and stones scatter in all directions. Rubey and other experienced curlers offer advice and encouragement. As time passes, more stones seem to be going toward their targets, and fewer people seem to be body-slamming the ice. After about an hour of practice, groups pair up and play games against each other without keeping score. After another hour, Jackson-Smith says it’s time to stop and everyone starts to move toward the exits, bringing chilled toes and thousands of pounds of granite with them.

“It was more challenging than I thought it would be, but it definitely has the potential to be amazing,” Render said.

Every Monday night, men, women and children slide across pebbles and among hacks and hog lines Every Monday Eccles Ice Arena sees a full spectrum of ice sports: hockey sticks, figure skates, brooms and stones.

MS