Curling in 1: Sweeping
A championship sheet is 45.72 metres long and up to 5 metres wide, with a house at each end made of concentric rings 12, 8 and 4 feet in diameter around a central button. The tee line runs through the centre of each house, the back line marks the far edge beyond which a stone is out of play, and the hog line sits 21 feet in front of the tee line, giving 72 feet of open ice between the two hog lines. Behind each house are the hacks, the footholds from which stones are delivered. Keep Curling with “Sweeping” and 1 from 1. The thrower settles into the hack, pushes forward while sliding on a slippery-soled shoe, and releases the stone with a gentle rotation, two or three turns over its whole journey, which makes it curl. The release must happen before the hand crosses the near hog line; at elite level this is policed by handles with electronic sensors that light up if the stone is still held. A delivered stone must also cross the far hog line to stay in play, and must come to rest short of the back line.
World Curling, founded in 1966 as the International Curling Federation; 74 member associations 45.72 m long and up to 5 m wide; the house is 3.66 m (12 feet) across, with hog lines 21 feet from each tee line Polished granite, 17.24 to 19.96 kg, maximum circumference 91.4 cm; most of it quarried on Ailsa Craig, Scotland
Full medal sport since Nagano 1998; also contested at the first Winter Games in Chamonix in 1924 Canada leads with 36 men's and 19 women's; Niklas Edin holds the individual record with 8 (2013-2026) Curling looks like the gentlest thing on ice until you understand what is actually being asked. A player pushes out of a rubber foothold called the hack, releases a 20-kilogram block of polished granite before his hand crosses a line ten metres down the ice, then expects it to keep travelling another 28 metres and stop within a few centimetres of a target the size of a dinner plate, while two teammates scrub the ice ahead of it to steal back the last metre. Eight stones a side, ten ends, only one team scoring in each end. The whole sport is a negotiation between physics you cannot fully control and geometry you can.
Its origins are Scottish and medieval. A stone inscribed 1511 was pulled from a drained pond near Dunblane, and a notary at Paisley Abbey recorded a challenge on ice in February 1541. Scots emigrants carried the game to Canada, where the Royal Montreal Curling Club, founded in 1807, is the oldest active sports club in North America, and Canada has been the sport's centre of gravity ever since. But the modern map is genuinely global. Sweden, Switzerland, Scotland, Norway, Italy and the United States have all won world or Olympic gold this century, and Japan and South Korea have reached Olympic finals.
The notice keeps 1, “Sweeping,” and 1. Those three are the bones of Curling. Keep Curling with “Sweeping” and 1 from 1. 11
Figures to keep
- Year of the rule
- 1
- Figure in the game
- 1
- Sport
- Curling
- Rule line
- Sweeping
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