Curling Bruises

I have never felt so body-sore ever in my entire life. This is worse than having sex five times a day! Haha, just joking-la … *ahem* I mean, of course sex is better and more pleasurable … *wink, wink*

Anyway, I can’t believe I got sucked into joining the curling tournament, which was organized by the company’s social club. Curling is a team sport played on a rectangular sheet of carefully prepared ice by two teams of four players each. The competing teams take turns to slide heavy, polished granite stones down the ice towards the target, which is called the house. You can think of this house as a ring of circles, similar to that of a dart board. Two “sweepers” with “brooms” accompany each rock after it has been set in motion to direct it to their resting place. The purpose of the sweep is to melt the ice so that the stone will slide on a thin film of water. This (supposedly) helps to keep the stone in motion.

I thought this game originated from Canada. To my surprise, it actually originated from Scotland. There was this painted mural at the curling arena, and it depicted the Scottish people playing this sport in their bell-like skirts. I found it to be truly amusing. Moreover, they were using the old-style brooms to sweep on the ice. It was just too hilarious that I started to wonder how dumb this sport could be. For more information, seek my bible … Wikipedia

And so, I have never played curling before. I had no idea whatsoever how the game worked. Even though there was a short training for beginners prior to the tournament … I was convinced that it was not going to be fun. And I was right … I fell about eight times on the ice. There were three blows to my knees, which landed a bruise of about 2 inches wide. My whole body aches whenever I try to stand, squat, sit, lift … I feel like I have to be a statue for the next few days. It won’t be enjoyable at work …

I will never, ever join this curling bonspiel again. NEVER. I think it is dumb, at least. It is such a fine mark between sliding the rock too short of the house, and sliding it over the house. It is not as plain Jane as skating on an ice. At least, skating has logical techniques that make you stop where you want to. I buy that kind of friction. Not by melting the ice for a split second or two just so that ridiculously-heavy $5000 rock will be able to zoom into its landing spot. I swept like I was scrubbing wine stain off a carpet. Seriously … how much energy can you put into melting that damn ice? And to do it while catching up with the sliding stone? AND to do it twelve times (three times for each end; we played four ends with each opponent) in one hour? The only fun part was to slide the stone. The sweeping was far-fetched to me. I don’t mind sweeping garbage on the floor. Don’t ask me to waste my energy sweeping with intentions of moving a rock forward.

Bottom line is … I did not like the sport. But I thought we put in good effort in coming up with a theme! Our team was called RockStarss. We had our face painted; a red star on the left cheek, and the curling rock on the right cheek. Also, my colleague did an excellent job in making the pom-pom for our toques!