'Odd Coolness': Curling in Connecticut

"A minute to learn, a lifetime to master." That motto works for the game Othello. But it just as easily applies to curling — the sport, not the exercise.

"A lot of people don't quite understand what it is," Joel Leneker, president of the Nutmeg Curling Club, said sitting here in the warming room of this Bridgeport facility, a regional venue that draws curlers from throughout Fairfield County.

Usually when the Monroe resident tells people he curls, he's met with a quizzical look, a chuckle, and then the inevitable questions: "Why do you sweep?" And "Why do you have the broom?"

For starters, curling teams, comprised of four people on each side, aren't cleaning the ice. Nor are they trying to make the rock, or stone, go faster. They are, however, trying to get the rock to travel farther down the sheet, or lane.

Leneker began curling five years ago. "I thought it would be fun to try, and it was one of only two Olympic sports that I could do," he told Patch. "And my eyesight isn't good enough for archery."

Celebrating its 50^th anniversary, the Nutmeg Curling Club used to be based at the Darien Country Club. Not an unusual marriage. Many country clubs in the 1920s and 1930s had curling. It offered golfers an activity during the cold months.

By most accounts, curling traces its roots to late medieval Scotland. "It was probably invented to pass time in the winter because there's not much else to do in Scotland, in the winter, except maybe drink," Leneker said.

While the Scots started the pastime, the Canadians modernized the sport. It debuted as an Olympic sport during the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan.

First-time curlers must learn the basic terminology. Sheets are "lanes," targets are "houses," and the big rock the leader throws? That's called a "rock."

The 40-pound rocks come from a little island off the Ayrshire Coast of Scotland. It's either blue hone granite or Ailsa Craig granite.

The goal is to get the rock as close as possible to the button, or center of the house. There are four players on the team. Eight ends, or innings, make a game.

The brooms are Canadian — there simply isn't enough demand in the United States for an American manufacturer to enter the market.

One reason people love curling is it's a game that once learned, lasts a lifetime.

Curiosity drew Bobbie Stoll, of Norwalk, to curling. She saw an ad for one of the club's open houses. She thought she'd just watch. But the next thing she knew, she was on the ice, sweeping. "It took me by surprise that I was actually going on the ice," Stoll said.

That was nine years ago. Today, Stoll is one of the club's lead instructors, and the club claims 189 members. At least 30 kids from area schools play on teams.

Chuck and Joanna Owens of Stamford are among the club's original members. They got their start in 1963 while living in Green Bay, Wisc.

"We went to buy furniture one day and someone asked us if we wanted to try curling," Owens said.  "We didn't know what he was talking about."

But they gave it a whirl and made fast friends with the sport. When the couple moved east in 1967, they found the Nutmeg Curling Club. They promptly purchased a house next door.

"We wanted to be close to it," Owens said. "It's a game of a lot of strategy and a lot of finesse. And it's something my wife and I can do together."

People come to the Bridgeport club from many towns, including Shelton, Weston, Wilton, Darien, Greenwich and Stamford. The only other club in Connecticut is in Norfolk.

A few times a year curlers from the Nutmeg Curling Club participate in tournaments, or "friendlies" with other clubs in the region.

As a nonprofit organization, the club relies on membership fees to operate. Dues vary. Full members with three or more years of experience pay $550 a year. First-time  curlers pay $325 for a one-year membership, which includes six  weeks of "greenhorn," or basic instruction. 

Curlers love the playing because it mixes sport and socializing. Winners always buy the losers the first round of drinks. There are no officials, buzzers, or boos.

"There is an etiquette," Leneker said. "You don't hope for your opponent to have a bad shot. The game begins with a handshake and you say 'Good curling.' It ends with the same handshake."

The season extends from October through April.  By spring, other pursuits such as hiking, biking or golf beckon.

"You choose how much you put into it," Stoll said. "The harder you play the more effective you are. You can work up a sweat."

Of course, sore shoulders, hips and backs aren't unknown, added Leneker. In fact, by the end of a two-hour game, players will have walked two miles up and down the sheet.

In some ways it's all about the ice. But not just anyone can make ice. It takes a season of interning before an icemaker can do it alone.

As one of the club's reigning icemakers, Stoll heads out before and after each game equipped with a water-filled backpack and sprinkler. She sprays, or pebbles the ice. Upon close inspection the ice is revealed to be not smooth like a skating rink, but rather lightly pocked like the skin of an orange.

Two or three times a week Stoll, or another icemaker, scrapes the ice to rid it of divots, dirt, lint and tracks.

"It's really important the ice be level because it will affect where the rocks go," Stoll said. "Ice makers are feared and revered."

As Americans become more familiar with the sport, members of the Nutmeg Curling Club said there are fewer jokes. During the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, NBC aired a special highlighting the U.S. men's curling team. And satellite television allows fans to follow games in Canada. 

Stoll said of the sport: "It has a kind of odd coolness."