With the Winter Olympics comes an array of sports many people see once every four years -- ski jumping, cross country skiing, speed skating, and ice dancing, to name a few. But none are stranger and more interesting than the sport of curling.
For 星空无限传媒's new sports podcast , Thomas Bradley spoke with Gordon Webster from the . The Columbus Curling club has Learn-to-Curl clinics starting next week, and Webster said spots are already more than 3/4 of the way full.
He said in addition to normal clinics, this year the club will be offering wheelchair clinics with members of the US Paralympic team.
TB: Every four years, clubs across the nation see a spike in interest in curling when the Winter Olympics puts this sport on TV. The Columbus Curling Club is no exception, correct?
GW: We have a huge spike in interest every four years when the Winter Olympics come on. It was particularly strong [four years ago] in Vancouver because it was in North America and it was on TV a lot more. Last Winter Olympics we had almost 1,200 people come through Learn-to-Curl clinics in one week, and we had another 700 people on a waiting list that we just couldn't accommodate.
TB: Let's play Curling 101. Why is it called curling?
GW: Well there's some debate on that. Curling began, the oldest curling stone they found is from 1511, so it began in Scotland in the late 1400's early 1500's. A lot of people think its because a curling stone will curl. But they didn't curl back then because they were just playing on a frozen pond or a river, and the stones didn't curl, they were just throwing flat river rocks back then. A lot of people believe it's from an old Scottish word, "curr," 脗 which refers to the noise that the stones would make when they slide down the ice. It's kind of a roar. A lot people say it's the roar of the rink. It's the game that roars.
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