Men With Brooms: The Manly Sport of Curling

Started by perry | 1 contributor
updated 1 day ago

For the uninitiated, Curling probably comes off like an exotic game, akin to wild boar hunting or street luge. This guide aims to demystify the ancient northern sport of Curling, one of the great games of Olympians. Long thought of as a Canadian sport, its roots are actually in Scotland in the early 1500's. Today, Canada is the world's most advanced Curling country (stats below), and hosts the annual Briar, considered to be the premier annual Curling Bonspiel. There is a World Curling Championship, but since Canada claims some 80% of the sports "athletes", it's not likely to be featured on US-based sports networks anytime soon. Unlike Poker.

1924: The First Curling Olympic Event

Many people think of Curling as a recent entrant to the Olympics, introduced in the 1998 Nagano games, and made more visible and famous in Salt Lake City. Technically, not so. While it took awhile (82 years to be exact) the first Curling Olympic medal was actually won by the Scots for their 1924 winning performance.

The IOC longstanding opinion was that the 1924 Curling event at Chamonix was simply a “demonstration”. The news “rocked the curling world” in January, 2006, when the IOC declared it a legitimate Olympic competition and awarded the 1924 team from Scotland an Olympic gold.