Curling!

I went curling...  Actually I went twice.  If you're not familiar with curling by name, it's that game in the winter olympics where you slide big rocks down the ice and there are peopling sweeping the ice in front of it.  If you're not familiar with that at all, it's a game created in Scotland and is actually a lot of fun (and surprisingly a really good workout).  The Fairbanks Curling Club had a rookie tournament so Steve and I found ourselves on a team.

The games are very long - each team has 8 rocks and 4 players and you alternate throwing rocks down the sheet with the other team for a total of 6 rounds (so a total of 96 rocks are thrown in a game total).  The scoring is a little strange and there are a ton of crazy rules but the idea is to slide the 40 lb stone while balancing on a Teflon sole down the 150 foot sheet and try and get it as close to the center as possible while blocking or taking out other stones.

The sport is based on good sportsmanship... and drinking/socializing.  There is a bar right in the curling club with a very nice lounge overlooking the sheets.  The whole sport is based on sportsmanship - players call their own fouls (if you touch the stone with the broom or body part) and the wining team cleans up the ice after the game and buys the losing team drinks.  If you get a stone directly on the center (the button) you buy your team a pitcher.  And my favorite part, if you believe you have no chance in winning the match, you can concede the match and offer the winning team congratulatory handshakes before all rounds are completed to allow more time for drinking and socializing and does not carry the same stigma as quitting or forfeiting.

 Pretty much everywhere in Fairbanks has an ice sculpture out in front

This is how to determine if rocks are closer to the center or not.  The scoring is a bit strange, but only one team can score per round.  At the end of the round, the team with the rock closest to the center gets a point for each rock inside the house (orange circle) but only if each rock is closer than all the opponent's rocks.  It's hard to explain but it makes sense I swear.

Anyway it was a ton of fun even though we lost both games, we had drinks after and it was a good time.