Curling by Simon Heptinstall
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I couldn't help noticing the mysterious recurring circular motif repeating right across the carpet in the hotel reception. The strange pattern continued along the corridor to my room at the North West Castle Hotel.
Why was a flying saucer featured all over the hotel's floor? Or then again, was it a doughnut? Only later, when I walked back the other way, did I see the motif the right way up. It was a curling stone.
I shouldn't have been surprised. This 73-room four-star hotel in Stranraer, Wigtownshire, Scotland, is a shrine to what the Scots call ‘the roaring game’, after the noise a curling stone makes as it skids across the ice.
If you're still wondering, curling is that sport a little like bowls on ice, where two sweepers frantically brush the ice in front of a granite stone as it slides toward a target. It is played by 30,000 people in Britain, almost all of them Scottish.
Curling appears to have been played for around 500 years - but got a big boost when the British women team's dramatic victory over Switzerland earned a gold medal in the 2002 Winter Olympics.
Millions watched on TV as British curling captain Rhona Martin gracefully slid her final curling stone into its gold-medal-winning position. Luckily, no-one was watching me when I tried to copy her at the North West Castle.
A door next to the reception desk leads to the purpose-built four-aisle indoor rink, overlooked by a large bar and restaurant for players and spectators. The hotel's walls are decorated with portraits of top curlers, paintings of ancient curling scenes, curling banners, pennants and inscribed lists of curling trophy winners. The hotel also has its own shop, selling, of course, curling clothes, shoes, gloves, and souvenirs.
By the time I sat down to dinner in the grand silver-service AA_rosette restaurant with a pianist and crystal chandeliers, I was almost expecting to get my seafood whisked across the shiny floor on top of a granite curling stone.
I'd travelled to the south west Scotland to sample a special beginner’s curling package in what is claimed to be "the first hotel in the world to have its own indoor curling rink." The first of many? Who knows but whatever, it was a chance to try a completely different new sport that looked particularly easy yet potentially a good laugh.
I thought I might be rather good at this sport. This enterprising Englishman would show them how it’s done. After all, it looked easy on TV when Rhona Martin and her team of fellow Scots won their gold medals. With all that brushing and casual clothing, some English armchair critics described it as “housework on ice.” Another columnist sneered: “Curling? Surely that should be kept inside hairdressing salons and not dragged into international competition?”
My first hint that it isn’t as easy as it looks came when instructor Jim Young handed me a pair of curling shoes. One has a slippery sole, the other has a grippy one. Curlers have a unique way of moving around the ice – skating on their slippery shoe, while pushing with the other foot.
When Jim, or any of the Olympic stars, move across the ice it looks balletic. When I tried, I looked like a drunk trying to walk on hot coals. Forget trying to make an accurate throw… standing upright was the first problem.
I remember hooting with embarrassed laughter and desperately clutching Jim's arm for support while he tried to explain the technicalities. “I can see this is going to be difficult,” he muttered.
Throughout the winter Jim and his team that teach the local schoolchildren every week – but an overzealous uncoordinated beginner from south of the border presented a whole new challenge. Well, Scotland’s curling teachers will have to get used to us. Since the 2002 gold medal there has been a flood of curling-wannabes desperate to have a go. The hotel welcomes parties of beginners from England and Wales - but beware that you could easily end up in an aisle next to Gold medal captain Rhona Martin who plays here too.
The hotel is run by Hammy McMillan, until recently the captain of the British male Olympic curling team. As well as the usual swimming pool, gym and sauna, it has its own huge ice curling rink and team of instructors that attracts players from all over the world every winter. The Rink opens on October 9 and closes on April 3 2005.
Hopefully all the newcomers to curling will find a teacher as good as Jim, for within half an hour I was standing up AND moving. More importantly I could now launch myself from the starting block called a ‘hack’. This done with a brush in one hand for balance and one of the 44lb granite stones in the other.
Note the weight. The stone is almost too heavy to lift off the ice. Yes, it may look easy on TV but there's a bit more to this game.
The trickiest bit comes in knowing when to let go of the stone. Too soon and it hurtles right over the target into the back wall like a train running headlong into the station buffers. Hold on to that hefty polished lump of granite too long though, and you slide right down the rink alongside your stone looking marvellously ridiculous.
That silliness is where curling starts becoming fun. We were soon roaring with laughter at my mistakes. Perhaps that's why they call it the roaring game. If I'd been part of a gang of pals, with drinks and an evening stretching ahead of us, it would have been hilarious.
Nevertheless I ended up punching the air as if I’d won my own Olympic medal when I sent a stone down the 30-metre track to land close to the bull’s eye, or ‘house’. Was this my inherent natural ability revealing itself… or a total fluke? Jim neglected to tell me.
My final lesson was in the technique of brushing. I’d never really understood why Britain’s winning shot was accompanied by a couple of team members apparently cleaning up the ice in front of it as it slid towards victory.
Jim explained that vigorous brushing can make up to 12 feet difference to the length of a shot. The experts scrub so hard they melt the ice. Unfortunately my brushing was far too dainty to make any difference, as I was more concerned with not falling over. In fact when I tried to brush for Jim’s shot I couldn’t move quick enough across the ice and the stone ended up hitting me and stopping dead halfway down the track.
Oh well, I probably just need a few more lessons - just to fine tune my inherent natural ability you understand.