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For those of you who might not have heard of curling before, do not think that it has anything to do with hairdressers. Seriously! Curling is a highly revered sport that has controversial beginnings, and an ardent following in the northern regions of the world.

People of Scottish descent and folks of Flemish, or Dutch, ancestry claim that curling originated in their home lands. On one hand, archeological evidence of a curling stone inscribed with the date 1511, along with another that was dated 1551, were uncovered when a pond was drained in Scotland. However, a Scottish clergyman penned a book in 1811 that acknowledged the Germanic roots of some of the game’s terminology, thus admitting that curling has roots in the continent of Europe. Regardless of who founded curling (though serious curlers are not willing to give up the controversy so easily), the concept of the sport is pretty simple. Imagine a shiny patch of ice on a frozen lake or river. Now imagine sliding a big rock along the ice, and watching it arc gracefully as it spins with the centripetal force you’ve applied. It’s a start!

Curling has evolved into a more complex game with specific terms and rules. Generally though, it is played on ice with 4 players on each team. The aim of the game is to get your stone closer to the “house,” or bullseye drawn at the center of the ice than the other team. Each player has two stones and they alternate throwing the stones for a total of 16 stones per “end” of the period. At each “end”, the team who has thrown their stones the closest to the center mark of the “house,” receives one point for each stone that is closer than the other team’s best throws. After ten “ends,” which takes about 2 1/2 hours total, the team scoring the most points wins.

Here’s the tricky part: the stones do not move in a straight line. The players throw them with a spin on them, so that they create a curve along the ice. Also, players sweep the ice to reduce the friction in front of the stone, so that it slides farther, and travels in a straighter line. This way, the direction of the stone’s path can be altered by the person sweeping it: but they cannot actually touch the stone once it is in motion.

Curling is a precision sport–for the players must not over-estimate their mark– and it is a game that requires endurance in the throwing of the stones and the sweeping of the ice. What a nice way to enjoy a winter day when the local pond is completely frozen over!