Curling

“ The players are also provided with brooms, with which they sweep off the snow and other obstacles from the rink. One point of judgment in curling is to know when to sweep the way clear for a coming stone and when not to, the sweeper knowing about how fast the stone will go for its weight, and about where it will land if allowed to travel over a rough or a smooth surface. The number of points ordinarily appointed as decisive of a [Pg 294] curling-match is thirty-one, and the side which first scores that total is the winner. ”

“ DIAGRAM OF A CURLING-RINK.
There are usually four players on a side, and each player is armed with two stones. These stones are of circular shape, with flattened sides, and must not weigh more than fifty pounds nor less than thirty pounds. Neither must they be more than thirty-six inches around, nor less in height than one-eighth of the greatest circumference. Curling enthusiasts attach great importance to their stones. They have them of various weights to suit their own fancy, and of every possible variation of form. Some players prefer flat stones, while others have a liking for high ones. ”

“ One suddenly flings out his hand with one, two, or more fingers extended, at the same moment the other must guess the number. Curling has been called the roaring game, but no curler ever made a greater racket than two excited chi-mooe players. ”

“ Into the history of curling there is not space to penetrate, and we must, in a treatise of which the range is confined to the present and does not explore into the mists of antiquity, confine ourselves to considering the practical aspects of the game. ”

“ In the exciting sport of surf-riding, which always astonishes strangers, they balance themselves lying, kneeling or standing on a small board which is carried landwards on the curling crest of a great roller. ”

“ It yields him, if he is a novice, a quicker dividend of pleasure than skating yields to the beginner, or curling to the curler. After a week’s practice, starting from the beginning, the skater will scarcely yet have felt himself firmly travelling on an outside edge, which, when he has accomplished it, is after all only the beginning of further trouble, while the curler, after the same lapse of time, will not have begun to deliver his stones with the most distant approach to what could possibly be called accuracy. ”

“ It is very like working the brake on a horse-car. If you do it too much, you stop the car too soon, and the ladies have to get off in the mud instead of at the clean crossing. So, in curling, if you do not sweep enough, the stone will stop before it reaches the hoose; but if, on the other hand, you sweep too much, the stone reaches the hoose, and perhaps passes the tee, and then your opponents begin to "soop," and make the ice so smooth that your stone passes clear out of the hoose, and so is lost, amid cries of "Weel soopit!" ”

“ It is roughened with spikes on its lower side, so that it maintains a firm position on the ice, and at the back of it is a ridge against which the player places his right foot before delivering the stones. It forms, in fact, a firm base for playing from, since, if anybody attempted to put down a curling-stone, while standing on the ice itself, with sufficient velocity to make it slide over the 42 yards to the other tee, he would quite certainly slip and put himself down instead. It is from a crampit that almost all curlers nowadays play. ”

“ The Game.—Curling is practically bowls played on the ice, the place of the “jack” being taken by a fixed mark, as at quoits, called the tee, to which the curler aims his stone; every stone that finally lies nearer than any of the opposing stones counting a point or “shot.” As each side has four players, each playing two stones, it is possible for one side to score eight points at a “head” or innings ”

“ In this respect curling is precisely similar in principle to the well-known game of bowls. Round the tees are scratched several concentric circles or ‘broughs,’ a foot or so apart from each other, by which means the distance at which stones are lying from the goal is seen at a glance at any time during the continuance of the ‘end.’ In the normally long rink, a scratch called the hog-score—usually made wavy, to distinguish it from any accidental crack—is drawn across the line of play near each end, eight yards from the tee ”

“ Theoretically, I think, in the ideal game of curling, which we shall never see on this side of the grave, the leads should have laid down four stones a little in front of the house, or perhaps each lead should first have put down a stone in front of the house, and then delivered their second stones with in-handle or out-handle, round their first stones, which thus become guards of their second stones, which should lie, say, in the four-foot circle. ”

“ Tam Samson's livin'!
[23] In curling, to guard is to protect one stone by another in front; to draw is to drive a stone into a good position by striking it with another; to wick a bore is to hit a stone obliquely and send it through between two others.
[24] The line a curling stone must cross to stay in the game.
ELEGY ON CAPT. MATTHEW HENDERSON,
A Gentleman Who Held the Patent for His Honours Immediately From Almighty God
O Death! ”

“ The Toronto Club usually play for 31, in a regular game; and in their matches among themselves, or with the Scarboro’ Curlers, when more than one rink has been engaged, the practice has been, either to play to an hour specified, or to stop before that hour should the aggregate shots of either party on all the rinks collectively amount to thirty-one for each rink. In Scotland, where the continuance of the curling season is very precarious, all who have it in their power, play the whole of every day while the ice will permit, and, consequently, the number of shots played for is more uniform. ”

“ Curling, I may notify the English reader, is a game played on the ice with immense large stones like cheeses, that are sent gliding along from tee to tee. In some ways it is like bowls, in some respects like skittles, and in others like billiards on a very large scale. But it beats all for pleasure and excitement. I only wish Englishmen would take to Scotland’s roaring game, as they have adopted our other national games of football and golf.
Sandie was permitted to drive, and in an hour that grey mare had trotted them out to the loch. The boys spent all the forenoon playing. ”

“ This “handle” gives a rotatory motion to the stone, so that as it is travelling up the ice it is also slowly revolving on its own axis, either from right to left or left to right, and this rotation imparts to it, as its initial velocity diminishes and its pace slows down, a curling movement, in the manner of a break from the off or a break from the leg at cricket, or, if you will, a swerve in the air, or, as in golf, of a pull or a slice. ”

“ Curling is essentially a Scottish game, and one over which the stolid Scotsmen manage to work up considerable enthusiasm and excitement. It has been imported into this country, and especially in Canada have American curlers become almost as proficient as any in the world. Few games afford better sport and exercise, and a certain amount of muscular strength is demanded of the players. The game is played on ice, of course, and the space marked out for playing is called a "rink." ”

“ Seventy pound stones would no longer be tolerated by any body of sportsmen affiliated under the Royal Caledonian Curling Club. In the olden times it seems, in some parts of Scotland, notably in the south-west, to have been a game of strength rather than of skill, and the man who threw his Pg 63 huge block the farthest, and struck his opponent’s stone from the tee, or “cock,” was considered to be the superior player. ”

“ A skater of the highest eminence might make his appearance, a skier who could negotiate the most incredible jumps, a tobogganer who could ride the Cresta backwards might be announced, but all these masters of their craft would be looked on as amiable aliens if the bonspiel was at all imminent. At such a time there is no talk but of curling. The immediate ski-ing is not very good, but there are excellent long excursions. ”

“ For those and many other reasons, the curler should, when possible, have a{80} separate rink of his own, where he can soop and shout and smoke without interfering with anybody.
Now, just as the art of skating has enormously progressed owing to the facilities afforded by Swiss rinks and winters, so too has that great sister art of curling. As in all forms of sport where delicacy or “touch” are essential to success, occasional practice is not enough to produce really first-rate curlers, or, indeed, to keep the first-rate curler at the top of his game ”

“ By the judicious arrangement of the managers, in appointing the hours of playing, and in having the ice ready before the Curlers meet, the time- 37 - which was formerly wasted in preparations that may be performed by laborers, is now spent in the game; and thus the recreation can be shared by many, who should otherwise, by the nature of their occupations, be excluded from the rink. Wherever, on this continent, Curling has been introduced and not continued, its decline is attributable to the want of that system which the proper organization of a club would ensure. ”

“ Another famous winter sport is the national Scottish pastime of curling, and even when transplanted to the colder climate of Canada, the power which this sport possesses of firing sedate temperaments, and heating them to the ebullition-point of enthusiasm, suffers not one whit of diminution. ”

“ Now, a certain proportion of the immigrant English at Frédon during the winter months think of practically nothing else all day, and a certain amount of the night, but ski-ing; to others, curling is a similar obsession ”

“ For those who may be interested in the sport, and who care to become more familiar with it or to learn the many rules which experience and practice have shown to be necessary, I recommend an article on curling in the volume on skating in the Badminton Library.
The many protests in the recent contests held by the New York I. S. A. A. have led the officers of that organization to formulate and adopt some new rules which will now make the conditions of contests perfectly clear. ”

“ These rinks are used for two purposes: skating, including bandy or ice hockey, and curling. I do not count ice-gymkhanas or ice-carnivals, because anything is good enough for them. You can play the shovel-game or crawl through barrels among the jungles of frost-flowers. I do not imply that such entertainment is not exceedingly amusing; I only mean that the artist in rink-making paints his masterpieces primarily for the sake of the skater and the curler, not for the Pierrot with his Chinese lantern, or those who win three-legged races. ”

“ At Toronto, the want of a written code of laws, was for a number of years, felt to be inconvenient—few of the original Curlers having been accustomed to play exactly according to the same system. It was, therefore, one of the first objects of the Toronto Curling Club, after its formation, to draw up a set of Rules, founded on the prevailing practice in Scotland. ”

“ A few years ago, the Bonspiel took place at Three Rivers. The distance which, in those cases, the players had to travel, sufficiently shows how warmly they are devoted to the game.
During the last winter, the officers stationed at some of the posts to the south of Montreal, relieved the monotony of military duty, by engaging in Curling. The game has been practised at Perth, in the Bathurst District, although now fallen into disuse there. ”

“ The player who makes a mistake after this has been done is fit neither for a Curler nor a Soldier. This method has been practised at Toronto since the winter of 1837-38—when military terms and ideas were infused into every department of life.
When a few players are curling for practice, or recreation, some of the above laws may not be rigidly enforced; but any relaxation should always be noticed, so that there may be no difficulty in strictly adhering to them when playing a Bonspiel, or set game. ”

“ Where the game originated is not precisely known; but it has been popular in Scotland for three centuries at least. Some writers, looking to the name and technical terms of the game, trace its invention to the Netherlands; thus “curl” may have been derived from the Ger. kurzweil, a game; “tee” from the Teutonic tighen, to point out; “bonspiel,” a district curling competition, from the Belgic bonne, a district, and spel, play; the further supposition that “rink” is merely a modification of the Saxon hrink, a strong man, seems scarcely tenable. ”

“ A low line of shore was visible at first on the right between the movement of the waves and fog, but when we came further it was lost sight of, and nothing could be seen but the mist curling in the rigging, and a small circle of foam. ”

“ Should the ice be slow, greater force is given to the stone by a longer swing, and should the ice be fast the swing is shortened. But in no case, if the ice is playable on at all, should the impetus be derived from a muscular effort of the arm as in throwing; but as in golf, the swing of the arm and body together give the stone its impetus. And throughout the swing the eyes of the curler must never leave the directing besom of his skip. It is as fatal to look away from that as it is to take the eye off the ball at golf. ”