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Throwing Stones and Sweeping Ice with Hollywood Curling
Move over, dodgeball, there's a new sport in town:Curling. Yup. It seems that the Winter Olympic sport that combines shuffleboard, bocce and ice has quite a growing following in LA. We spent an open-house learning session recently with the super cool Hollywood Curling team and learned a few things about the oft-maligned sport.
Curling, which probably originated in Scotland (not Canada), consists of two teams of four players on a rectangular sheet of ice who take turns manipulating (by “throwing” then sweeping) these 42-pound granite "stones" toward the target (aka the "house") with a broom (that looks a lot like a kitchen mop to us!).
There’s more strategy and finesse involved in curling than we ever imagined: knocking opponents rocks out of the way, placing stones to guard the house, etc., so we won't go into much detail about the game. To score points, the rock closest to the button at the center of the house is awarded one point, and one point for each of the team's own rocks that are closer than the opponent's closest rock. The highest score you can get is an eight (that's how many rocks each team throws) but that's pretty much impossible to get.
We'll leave further explanation of the sport to the experts. So if you're looking for something different to do, consider checking out one of the club's Sunday night learning sessions. We found a better appreciation of something that looks so simple to do on TV.
Hollywood Curling
@Valley Ice Center (8750 Van Nuys Blvd, Panorama City)
Sunday learning sessions tomorrow, Oct. 4 and Oct. 11
$15 per person or $50 for teams of 4*
*All equipment (and snacks) will be provided. Dress in comfortable clothes and sneakers (no skating involved!).
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