A Clean Sweep

The Man writes...when we heard that the Boy and his buddy were going to an Open Day at the Albany Curling Club, Albaniana and I both thought that sounded like something we should try.

Often curling seems to be held up as the ultimate example of a crazy Olympic sport - it's the sweeping I guess.  But I remember staying up late to watch GB win Gold in Salt Lake City in 2002 (luckily I was off work with paternity leave for the Boy) and being impressed by the combination of skill and tactics. 

The Club put a great effort into giving its guests an enjoyable introduction to the sport. There was a large attendance and we didn't get the opportunity to do many throws, but we learnt about form (there's a handy piece of teflon under your sliding foot), about the granite stones (really heavy and at least a thousand dollars each), about the special ice (it's pebbly not smooth), and - yes - about the sweeping, which makes the stone go further not faster and is a lot trickier than it looks.