Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Curling Night in St Paul

It was a night to curl in the Saintly City. The Serier Rink sans Serier came within a point of victory. It was a competitive game, but the good shots weren't forthcoming when we needed them. There was some chatting with the old guys on the team after the game while we ate dinner in the upsatirs area of the club. Mr Moohoo and I are the youngsters on this team, if you can believe that. Harry admits to playing 56 years in a row of curling, starting in Superior, Wisconsin, in 1951 or 1952. He was explaining how curling has changed over the years. The stone size has standardized to 42 and a half pounds, and now curlers slide when they deliver the stone. They used to just slide the stone from the hack (the starting position) down the ice sheet. Now there is a controversy about the use of the stick. People are allowed to use a long stick - kind of like a shuffle board stick - to deliver the stone. It's a boon to people who have a bad back or balance problems, but the purists think that it compromises the sport. On our team (the Serier Rink) only Serier is a stick user, and he has a bad back. Nobody has complained about the stick in any of our games, so I guess at our club it has been welcomed.

It's about 7 degrees outside tonight and it looks like we may see a below zero reading in the morning. Winter is going to be with us for quite a while.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That seems too cold for this early in the season. Also, that's an interesting curling story. Who knew? SS