Watch Curling winter olympic Game 2018 Live>>>>
Curling is our strange quadrennial winter sports obsession. Depending on one’s taste, it’s either a compelling chess match on ice, or glorified shuffleboard with no proper place in a global sporting spectacle. But once the opening ceremonies of South Korea’s PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics begin on Feb. 9, you — or someone you encounter regularly — will suddenly start caring about curling. You know, that winter Olympic sport with the stones and the brooms and that dartboard-looking-thing on the TV.For NBCUniversal, the Olympics broadcaster, curling is a consistent ratings winner. CNBC goes from picking stocks to sweeping rocks during the Games, as the network will air hours of evening curling coverage during the Olympics.So it pays to know the basics of the sport. Here’s what you need to know about curling’s rules, positions, scoring and equipment, plus what to expect at the upcoming Winter Olympic games:Who are the American curling competitors at the 2018 Olympics?For the third consecutive Olympics, John Shuster, 35, will serve as skip for the U.S. men’s team. He’s the first American men’s curler to make four Olympic squads; Shuster, a Chisholm, Minnesota native, was lead for the 2006 Olympic team that won bronze in Torino. Shuster’s Olympic skip record isn’t so sterling. Faced with high expectations after the 2006 bronze medal, the Americans finished last in Vancouver and ninth in Sochi.Joining Shuster on the team are John Landsteiner — who competed with Shuster in Sochi — Tyler George and Matt Hamilton. Hamilton’s sister, Becca, made the U.S. women’s team, joining fellow first-time Olympians Nina Roth — the team’s skip — Tabitha Peterson and Aileen Geving.The Hamilton siblings, who hail from McFarland, Wisconsin, will be busy in PyeongChang. Older brother Matt, 28, and sister Becca, 27, will represent the U.S. in mixed doubles.What is the history of curling?The origin of curling traces back to 16th century Scotland, where the sport was played on frozen ponds and lochs. The first recorded match took place around 1541: a Scottish notary recorded a challenge between a monk at Paisley Abbey and a relative of the abbott. Scottish immigrants spread the sport to North America: the first Canadian curling club opened in Montreal in 1807, and the first American club appeared in Pontiac, Mich. in 1828. The Royal Caledonian Curling Club in Scotland, the so-called “mother club” of curling, wrote the first official curling rules in 1838.Curling first appeared as a medal sport at the 1924 Olympics in Chamonix, France. Only the men held a tournament, and Great Britain won gold (the entire team was Scottish). Curling made five appearances as an Olympic demonstration sport — in Lake Placid in 1932, Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1936, Innsbruck in 1964, Calgary in 1988 and Albertville in 1992 — before the sport was added to the Olympic program in Nagano in 1998. Since 1998, Canada has won three Olympic golds in curling on the men’s side — including the last three — while Switzerland and Norway each won one. Both Canada and Sweden have earned two women’s gold medals in curling; Great Britain won the women’s gold in 2002.Olympic curling stones weigh between 38 and 44 pounds; the granite is harvested from Ailsa Craig, an island off the west coast of Scotland that resembles, from a distance, a curling stone.How do you play curling and what are the rules?A key driver of curling’s appeal is its relative simplicity. Though the sport may have unfamiliar terms, and thus seem complicated, it’s actually pretty easy to follow.A curling match consist of 10 ends, which are equivalent to innings in baseball. In each end, the four players on both teams alternate throwing stones. The lead throws first, followed by the second, then the third — or vice-skip — then finally, the skip. Each of the four players on the competing teams throws two stones per end, for a total of 16 stones. The “skip” is the most important player on the team. The skip not only throws the last stone in an end — which often determines the scoring — but also directs the overall strategy.To execute a shot, a curler pushes a foot off the hack, a piece of rubber akin to a starting block. The curler slides across the ice, or sheet, to the hog line, and must release the stone before it touches the line. The stone then heads for the house — the area with four concentric circles on the other side of the sheet that loosely resembles a dartboard. The house is the scoring area.How does curling scoring work?Only one team can score during a curling end. The team with the most stones closest to the curling bullseye — the button — is awarded points. So if, after 16 stones are thrown, Team A has a stone right on the button, and Team B has a stone a few feet off the button, Team A scores a point. If Team A had one stone on the button and a stone a few feet off the button, while Team B had a stone on the outer edge of the house, Team A scores two points.The team that fails to score in an end gets the hammer, or the advantage of throwing the last stone, in the next end. If no stones remain in the house after an end, no points are awarded: the team with the hammer in a scoreless, or blank, end retains the hammer in the subsequent end. The team with the most points after 10 ends wins the match.
What’s with the curling brooms?After a curler throws a stone, his or her teammates will often start sweeping the ice in front the stone as it glides down the ice. Why is sweeping the activity that requires the most exertion in this particular Olympic sport? Physics! The sweeping warms the ice and reduces friction, allowing the stone to travel farther and straighter. Depending on the path of the stone and its intended target, a team’s skip will instruct the other curlers to either start sweeping like a teen whose parents are returning home early to an illicit house party, or to lift their brooms.What’s new for curling at the 2018 Winter Olympics?A mixed doubles tournament! Olympic organizers have added a mixed doubles curling event to the PyeongChang program to complement the men’s and women’s competitions. Mixed doubles curling teams consist of just two players — a woman and a man — instead of the usual four players per team. Matches are eight ends long, not 10, and the two players alternate throwing five stones per end instead of eight: one player throws the first and last stones, while the other throws the second, third, and fourth rocks.Mixed doubles adds a wrinkle. A sixth stone for each team isn’t thrown, but set on the ice before the start of the end. The stone of one team is positioned in the middle of the ice, guarding the house, while the other team’s stone is set in the house, near the button. The team with the hammer decides where the stone is positioned; if the team places its stone as the guard, however, the other team gets to take the last shot of the end.Once per game — but not in tie-breaking “extra ends” — the mixed doubles team with the hammer can decide to exercise a “power play.” In the power play, the pre-positioned stones are shifted to the side.In a perfect world, would curling power plays involve broomstick fighting and a penalty box like they do in hockey, rather than moving rocks around? Probably. But a more genteel game will do just fine. Mixed doubles scoring is the same as the traditional curling game. The team with the most stones closest to the button earns the points in that end.The 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, are set to begin Feb. 8, dishing up a heavy helping of curling, early and often.The 23rd Olympiad marks the debut of the mixed doubles curling tournament, one of four new events the International Olympic Committee added to the program for the 2018 Games, tacking on four extra days of competition than the 2014 Sochi Games.Curling matches begin the day before the opening ceremony and continue through Feb. 24, hours before the closing ceremony, creating an exciting but busy schedule for athletes and fans. And while the 600-year-old niche sport traditionally has been dominated by Canadians, the United States has a legitimate chance to take home a curling medal for the second time ever.Here's everything you need to know about curling at the 2018 Winter Olympics.Eight nations are competing in the mixed doubles tournament, while 10 will compete in the men's and women's team events.Given the sheer volume of curling at the 2018 Games, the sport is well positioned to capture viewing audiences across all hours of the day. There's a 14-hour difference between South Korea and the U.S. East Coast, but staggered competition means some matches will be carried live, possibly as part of NBC's main primetime block. That includes the women's gold medal game Feb. 24.All Olympic curling matches will take place at the Gangneung Curling Centre, part of the Gangneung Olympic Park. The larger venue will also host figure skating, ice hockey and speed skating.Curling results from the 2014 Winter Olympics.Team Canada completed a clean sweep at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, winning gold in both the men's and women's tournament.Men's: Gold: Canada, Silver: Great Britain, Bronze: Sweden. Women's: Gold: Canada, Silver: Sweden, Bronze: Great Britain.U.S. curling Olympic medal historyIf Team USA medals in curling, it will be the second time in Olympic history. The American men claimed curling bronze in Turin in 2006.Americans Matt and Becca Hamilton are two of three Olympic curlers who qualified in both the new mixed doubles discipline and the traditional, single-gender curling event, and are expected to give the U.S. its best chance to medal in 2018. The siblings from McFarland, Wisc., could be on the ice for as many as 50 hours at Pyeongchang.Roughly 30 spouses, partners, parents and siblings and at least one aunt and uncle will be in the stands to watch the Canadian Olympic women’s curling team compete in the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea.That’s a far cry from the handfuls of supporters who accompanied Emma Miskew and her teammates to Latvia and China for the 2013 and 2017 world championships.A lot of time and energy since the Canadian Olympic trials in Ottawa in December have been devoted to defraying travel costs for loved ones, including curling club raffles and online auctions.It’s also a lot more expensive to go to the Olympic Games than it is to go to a world championship, just because it’s the Olympics and they can charge more,” Miskew, the third for the team skipped by Rachel Homan, said Tuesday, four days before the curlers’ flight to Japan for a pre-Games training camp.They have to fly all the way to South Korea, so a lot of the expenses are higher than they were in Beijing, and also the family and friends didn’t come to Beijing because we (only) had two weeks to decide. It’s a really quick turnaround. This time around, it’s the Olympics and we never know if we’re going to get there again, so all of the family and friends are like, ‘We have to do this. It’s something we can’t miss.
When the world’s attention swings to South Korea on February 9, the spectators and participants will be thinking about more than gold medals. The saber-rattling between the neighboring Koreas makes for an ominous backdrop to the XXIII Olympic Winter Games, a tension that seeing the countries’ athletes march under the same flag and skate on the same ice can’t quite erase.The Korean situation is unique, but all modern Olympics face threats, including terrorism and the personal-security dangers that come with big international crowds. There are decidedly modern risks to manage, as well. Chief among them: drones and computers. “What’s different now from past Olympics is increased use of unmanned systems and the cyber domain to stage attacks,” says security analyst Peter Singer. “The attacker doesn’t even have to be onsite. They can do it from afar.For instance, terrorists could use unmanned air or ground vehicles to deliver chemical agents or explosives, Singer said. Remote hackers could stage denial-of-service attacks on networks supporting the games or steal travelers’ credit card data. They might try to sabotage the Games by altering drug test data, interfering with scoring systems, or doxing competitors by releasing private information to embarrass or distract them before a big event. There are endless avenues that lone wolfs, terrorist groups, criminal organizations, or state agents can take to achieve an equally broad range of nefarious goals.For this reason, secreted in that tension-filled background will be the security forces of dozens of countries, led by the South Korean government’s own key agencies, all working to benefit from a collective expertise that rarely unifies. Allied nations consult readily with each other during planning and amid the nearly two weeks of events, and even typically adversarial countries are more likely to share information at the Games.South Korea’s security forces will run the show, but it’s no surprise the United States will have one of the largest forces at the Games. This is where the Diplomatic Security Service gets its turn to shine. The State Department’s security and law-enforcement agency is charged with protecting embassies and US citizens abroad, and will have 100 agents in the country, plus dozens of additional personnel. They’ll be working in support of the United States Olympic Committee’s own security office and alongside smaller teams from other American agencies that comprise the State Department’s International Security Event Group. Among them: the FBI and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which specializes in satellite data analysis and global threat monitoring. In total, the US is sending 240 athletes and 200 security personnel to Korea. And just like those athletes, these are specialized competitors who spend much of their lives training for events like this all-important two-week stretch on the global stage.While less known than the similarly structured Secret Service, the Diplomatic Security Service is no wannabe. It has 2,000 agents and 45,000 personnel stationed in more than 170 countries. In addition to routinely contributing to Olympic security, it does the same for the FIFA World Cup, and it even has its own security Super Bowl: the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York City. Months or years before an event like the Olympics, it inserts dedicated agents to the host country to help coordinate. Here, the strong ties between the US and South Korea prove helpful. So does Korea’s tech savviness—the home of Samsung and LG is no stranger to cybersecurity.We’re very confident in South Korea’s capabilities in staging the games,” said Rick Colón, director of the Office of Protection at the DSS. “We’ve been working very close together from the beginning, and it’s clear that the South Korean government has developed a comprehensive security plan for the Winter Olympics, as well as for the Paralympics that will follow.Indeed, the PyeongChang Organizing Committee for the 2018 Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games (POCOG) includes a robust roster of authorities: the Korean National Police Agency, the National Intelligence Service, the Presidential Security Service, and the nation’s military.The DSS started prepping for these Games nearly two years ago, when it sent two agents to Seoul, working out of the American embassy there. Their early efforts centered on security inspections at the various venues, establishing protocols for communicating with other agencies, contingency planning, and coordinating the placement of the DSS agents during the Games.The remaining agents who will converge on South Korea were chosen mostly for their experience with major events or the region in particular, any Korean language skills, and other factors. They will receive refreshers in first aid and the communication systems set up for the Olympics, along with additional training specific to all the potential scenarios that might play out. The DSS will station more than 20 agents (dubbed field liaison officers) at each of the two venue locations—the PyeongChang mountain cluster, which will host the opening and closing ceremonies and the skiing, snowboarding, and sliding events (bobsleigh, luge, skeleton); and the Gangneung cluster at the coast, for skating, hockey, and curling.There will be agents assigned to each venue, monitoring specific teams competing or practicing at those locations,” says Craig Reistad, the agency’s Olympic security coordinator. “Their role is to be on the ground to serve as eyes and ears at the venues. If there are any anomalies—anything out of the ordinary—they’ll know how to get the team out of danger and where to move them.In Seoul (two to three hours by train from those venues), dozens of additional agents will be stationed at a joint operations center, to communicate with the agents at the venues, the other security agencies, and local police, fire, and military services. Other DSS agents will work out of South Korea’s own command center. And a pair of situational awareness teams will be stationed at each cluster, monitoring the areas outside the venues for potential problems. That means sometimes mundane work: confirming that a road is clear for a VIP’s arrival, or verifying that any road accidents are indeed mishaps, not mischief. This is in addition to persistent vigilance to all the other potential threats that might appear first outside the venues.Though it’s not directly involved in the security of the Games, there will be another group kept on virtual speed-dial throughout: US Pacific Command (PACOM), the Department of Defense command that has maintained a presence in South Korea since 1957, after the Korean War. That presence manifests in US Forces Korea, which maintains more than 30,000 troops in the country that can be mobilized in minutes should any worst-case-scenario trouble arise.During the Games themselves, the lead DSS personnel, along with reps from other agencies, as needed, will brief the staffs each morning about any incidents, local police activity, and other notable intelligence reports, and the host nation will conduct daily intelligence updates. The DSS will itself report back daily to the State Department and communicate with the Overseas Security Advisory Council, a voluntary organization of US companies and entities that operate overseas and which may be involved in the Games. (NBC, for instance, will have 2,000 employees distributed between the two clusters, while major sponors like Coca-Cola, Bridgestone, and GE will send their own delegations.) Again, it’s all about communication. “The main strength we bring is information sharing,” Reistad says. “It doesn’t help any of us to stay compartmentalized over here.The nature of the information exchange varies widely. “The joint operations center works in concert with the liaison efforts and is plugged into the host government's security structure,” says Thomas Hastings, a security consultant formerly with the State Department and the FBI, who oversaw the State Department’s counterterrorism efforts during the 2000 and 1996 Summer Games. “Shared reports can be as serious as a credible and specific terrorist threat to an Olympic event, venue, or athletes to as routine as the key events occurring during the next shift, how the local and international media is covering the events, etc. Cyber threats would also be discussed as would social media activity, including among traditional adversaries and what they might be posting on social media.The participating agencies will supplement their information-gathering tactics with some swanky tech, likely including facial recognition systems, surveillance blimps, smart security cameras programmed to detect unusual behavior, and sensors to detect chemical or biological attacks. The DSS wouldn’t confirm its technological resources, but the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which interprets satellite data and imagery acquired from the National Reconnaissance Office to support combat and intelligence operations, says on its website that for the 2016 Summer Games in Rio, it built detailed interactive digital maps.
Even at ground level, the DSS taps every advantage, including new mobile devices that “transmit situational awareness of their agents and points-of-interest,” even in low-bandwidth situations. “We do try to employ as much technology as possible,” Colón said. “It’s a big enabler, in addition to our personnel. We use multiple communication technologies in order to make it as fluid as possible.Recent signs of collaboration between North and South Korea are encouraging, but they hardly mean all’s well going into the Games. The DSS wouldn’t divulge operational details relating to its contingency planning, except to say that it will conduct simulations at the joint operations center before the opening ceremony, covering a variety of scenarios.In terms of the most modern panoply of threats, analyst Singer says there are many tactics the security forces present might use to answer them. “Defenses against robotic aerial attacks, for instance, will first involve creating an airspace ban around the venues, then surveillance and detection technologies to track potential drones,” says Singer, the security analyst. “They’ll have technologies to shoot it down or disable it through jamming—hacking into it to hijack or block it, or just overwhelm it electronically.On the cyber front, the countermeasures will primarily be threat intelligence, which hinges on—you guessed it—sharing information with other agencies. “Simply tracking that will add to the resilience against an attack,” Singer says. “Good threat intelligence is not just saying that you see some type of malware, but learning that this group or that group is plotting something. If a threat is detected, knowing that groups used certain techniques in other situations helps identify them as suspects in a current one.Finally, there are the potential major catastrophes—terrorist attacks, a nuclear strike, or a natural disaster. Those are thought out too. “There’s always a plan,” Reistad said. “Yes, we look at the worst-case scenarios. We sit down together and conduct tabletop exercises and worst-case planning.Ultimately, the goal in South Korea is simple: keep the drama on the snow and on the ice. And however the Games go, the DSS and the rest of the world’s security agencies will be taking notes and honing their approach for the next major event in a world where geopolitical tensions show no signs of calming.It's like lawn bowls on ice, with the objective to get more stones nearer the centre of the scoring area (house) than your opponent. Ten teams of four curlers compete in men's and women's events, which begin with a round-robin stage. A shorter, more dynamic mixed doubles event makes its debut, featuring eight teams of one man and one woman. It comprises eight ends instead of the traditional 10.The tiebreak rules have been tinkered with but the major change is the addition of mixed doubles to the Olympic programme. This will also be the first Winter Olympics since the "thinking time" procedure was revamped to speed up play.British prospectsBritain won medals in the men's and women's events in 2014 and have been set a similar target by UK Sport. Eve Muirhead returns to lead an experienced women's team, while her siblings Thomas and Glen are part of the men's rink that includes skip Kyle Smith and his brother Cammy. Britain didn't qualify for the mixed doubles.
Canada have been on every Olympic podium since the sport was reintroduced to the Games in 1998, and they are the reigning men's and women's champions. Such is their strength in depth that neither of those 2014 gold medallists earned selection to defend their titles. In the mixed doubles, world champions Switzerland have their sights set on their first Olympic title.I didn't know that...Curlers can cover 5km during a game and burn up to 1,800 calories, which is nearly the recommended daily intake for women.South Korea's twin curlers Lee Ki-bok and Lee Ki-jeong have different personalities, but when it comes to curling, the two share the same dream of winning the country's first medal in the sport at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.My older brother smiles while playing, but I tend to be a little serious," Ki-jeong of South Koreas's mixed doubles team said, claiming that the difference nevertheless brings "balance" between the two. Ki-bok will compete for the men's team at the Feb. 9-25 PyeongChang Winter Olympics.Ki-bok and Ki-jeong were raised together in Gangwon Province, which houses the host county of PyeongChang, 180 kilometers east of Seoul. During the 2017 World Junior Curling Championships, they both played for the men's team and grabbed the country's first gold medal at the competition. But as the 2018 Winter Games drew closer, Ki-jeong decided to take a different road from his brother by seeking to compete in mixed doubles, which will be contested for the first time in PyeongChang. The decision was attributed to their different characteristics.As there are only two players (in mixed doubles), I thought I would have more leeway," Ki-jeong, who will play with his partner Jang Hye-ji, said. "And since it is the first time for the Olympics to adopt mixed doubles, I believed that the chances to win medals are also higher.Curling normally involves four-member teams composed of a lead, second, third and skip. Mixed doubles, however, calls for two players, one male and one female.Ki-bok, whom colleagues often describe as having relatively "gentle" characteristics, decided to keep his position on the men's team.Whether I can win a medal or not, I am running for the four-member team as I feel happiest here," Ki-bok said.While Ki-bok was the first to win a ticket to the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, the older Lee said he wasn't happy until his younger brother joined the national team as well.I couldn't be happy even after winning a ticket for the national team because of my brother," Ki-bok said. "After he was also selected as a member of the national mixed doubles team three weeks later, I was honored and delighted.Despite competing in different events at the 2018 Winter Games, the brothers said they both wish to grab medals to pave the way for the future of South Korean curling.The upcoming Winter Games will play a decisive role in the future of South Korean curling," Ki-jeong said. "We need to achieve good results for the development of curling. We also wish to give a little joy to South Koreans facing difficult times.The brothers said they wish to share each others' experiences in different events and develop into better curlers going forward.We wish to be together for future Olympics down the road," they added.The Lees, however, are not the only national curling team members connected by family ties. Kim Min-jung, head coach of the women's curling squad, is married to Jang Ban-seok, who heads the mixed doubles team. Kim Min-chan of the men's team is Min-jung's younger brother. Kim Kyung-ae and Kim Young-mi of the women's squad are sisters.For the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, three gold medals are at stake for the men's, women's and mixed teams, with Gangneung, a sub-host city close to PyeongChang, hosting all the curling matches.Norway’s curling pants are making an appearance at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. The Norway curling pants, and their multi-colored, checkered design, were initially a hit at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.The outfits developed a cult following during those Olympics; a Facebook page, Norwegian Olympic Curling Team’s Pants, swelled to more than 575,00o followers. Loudmouth, the company that makes the pants, saw a 40% increase in sales.The unsightly curling pants returned for the Sochi Olympics, but they didn’t help Norway as much as they did in Vancouver: Norway’s curling team won a silver medal in 2010, but did not bring home any hardware in Russia.So what do the Norway curling pants look like this time around? Loudmouth came up with a new design, dubbed “Icicles,” from the 2018 Olympics. Check them out below.Norwegian curler Christoffer Svae (left, above) doesn’t seem to mind wearing pants that look like a baby threw paint on them. “Whatever they come up with, we’re never really surprised,” Svae tells TIME. “We’ve seen it all.Svae and teammates (from left to right, above) Haavard Peterson, Thomas Ulsrud, and Torger Nergaard have competed in the Loudmouth pants at the last two Olympics, and have qualified for PyeongChang.The Loudmouth sponsorship has helped fund the Norwegian curling team’s Olympic aspirations, and given the curlers some notoriety. “If I’m walking down a main street in Oslo wearing the Loudmouth pants, people say, ‘oh, that’s the curling guy,” says Svae. He sometimes even gets recognized in Canada, where curling is particularly popular, while wearing normal pants.What should fans expect from Norway’s curling team in South Korea? “We’re excited to play our hearts out,” says Svae. While blinding millions of viewers with their pants, once again.When Matt and Becca Hamilton are on the ice together, it's pure chemistry. The brother and sister compete in curling, the "roaring game" where players take turns lunging down a sheet of ice, pushing a 44-pound rock.They sweep the ice with a special broom to help glide the rock to a target, known as the house. The team that ends up with rocks closest to the center of the house gets the points. It's similar to shuffleboard or even bocce ball.It's almost poetic," Matt, 27, says. "All you can hear is your broom sliding on the ice, and the rock sliding, the occasional sound of rocks hitting each other. It's kind of serene. It was very Zen.Now, the Hamilton siblings are heading to PyeongChang next month to represent Team USA at the 2018 Olympics.Matt and Becca Hamilton grew up watching their family curl at the Madison Curling Club in Wisconsin. Matt was not always impressed with the sport, he says.I remember in eighth grade, I watched my dad do it," he says. "And, I did not think it was cool when dad was doing it.Matt eventually found an interest in the sport. He got hooked on curling and then taught his younger sister.Once I was drug out on the ice, I didn't look back," 26-year-old Becca says. "I was down [at the curling club] every single day before school and after school, playing in multiple leagues at night. I was hooked."Matt is competing with the men's team, and Becca is playing with the women's team. But it's their mixed doubles that's getting all the attention.The mixed doubles event is new to the 2018 Olympics, and the Hamiltons will be on the ice competing against seven of the best curling duos from around the world. The siblings are hoping to make it to the podium, taking home the first gold medal in mixed doubles curling.The duo praise one another for their talent on the ice. Matt says he thinks Becca is the best female sweeper in the United States, and Becca says Matt can make almost any shot.Their ability to communicate also drives their success, says their mixed doubles coach Jake Higgs.I would say it's a better vibe than you get from spouses or significant others playing together," Higgs says. "Typically when things blow up for spouses it can take a number of ends or games to talk to each other again or like each other again whereas with Matt and Becca, it's a quick transition.Becca says her dynamic with Matt on the ice is different than with teammates on the women's squad.Matt and I feed off each other and we ground each other at the same time," Becca says. "So he's pretty involved with the crowd and he's got an upbeat personality and I'm kind of the calm out there that reels him back in when you need to.And because they're related, Matt says they can be more open with each other.If someone's struggling or something like that, we can tell each other with absolute honesty what we're seeing and know that that's not going to offend her," Matt says. "I'm not telling her what she's doing wrong to be mean. She knows I'm doing it to help her get better and play better.It was Saturday, Dec. 16, 2017, and 75 degrees outside the LongHorn Steakhouse at the Tampa Premium Outlets. Bernard Skerkowski, an accountant, was running late. When he arrived with his partner, Lisa Wycoff, they ordered “the usual,” a rum and Diet Coke and a Cosmo. “We’re not alcoholics,” Skerkowski clarified. “But once you see these guys, you’ll know why we need a drink.The guys in question were fellow members of the Tampa Bay Curling Club. Skerkowski, its 58-year-old founder, grew up playing the sport in Canada before moving in the early 1990s to Florida, where expanses of ice are as exotic as man-eating reptiles are commonplace. Two and a half decades later, when he heard that a huge skating complex would be opening in nearby Wesley Chapel, Skerkowski started ordering equipment and plotting to reserve three hours of weekly rink time, which the facility priced at $450 per hour. He would persuade a few dozen snowbirds to join him or eat his investment. In fact, when he offered demonstrations early last year to gauge interest, more than a hundred Floridians signed up: big, small, old, young, athletic, arthritic. All they had in common was their raw enthusiasm for the sport, matched by their near-total ignorance of how to play it.Skerkowski — whose own imposing physique belies his gracefulness on ice — resolved to teach them. He arrived early to make sure a Zamboni driver flooded the surface, which mitigates skate scars (a stray hair can redirect a stone), and to help bolt starting-block-like “hacks” into place. Then, using a hose from a shoulder-borne water pack, he sprinkled the frozen surface, creating “pebbles” for the rocks to slide on. When the curious recruits arrived, he gave them lessons in how to crouch, push off from a hack and deliver a 42-pound stone, diamond-cut from one of the world’s only two quarries, in Wales and Scotland, that have the right quality of granite; how to “sweep” the ice with a broom to make the rock go farther and straighter while en route to the bull’s-eye-like “house.” By last September, he had trained enough beginners to hold an actual league season. Now, just three months later, several of his more ambitious disciples were eager to enter national tournaments, or “bonspiels.” When Skerkowski gently encouraged them to focus on gaining experience, he began to hear rumors of an imminent leadership coup.
“Their etiquette isn’t quite there,” he said. “The thing is, they’re so excited about the rocks and the house, they stand up close looking at it, which you’re not allowed to do. The other thing is cutting across the ice. And you sort of don’t cheer for bad things to happen to the other team’s stone. But tell that to people who want their team to win. Oh, my God, there’s a big learning curve. I think in retrospect I made a mistake. I have this trophy that everyone is vying for, and I think I shouldn’t have done that. It’s not about the cheap-ass trophy.What none of his would-be usurpers knew was that between equipment, national club dues, ice time, beer and pizza, Skerkowski had poured at least $10,000 of his own money into the enterprise. “Bernie Skerkowski is the Tampa Curling Club,” he said. “Bernie could make it all go away. I’m looking for fun. I’m looking for learning, for people to have a good time — not all this crazy competition-type thing.”Scottish farmers are said to have invented curling in the 15th or 16th century, sliding water-worried channel stones over their frozen bogs. The sport appeared in modern form in the first Winter Olympics in 1924 before disappearing from the Games as a medal sport for the next 74 years. Its reappearance in 1998 was more fortuitous: When clouds enveloped the ski slopes of Nagano, Japan, TV stations scrambling for broadcast-worthy content discovered that curling produced solid ratings. The sport’s viewership swelled during its subsequent Salt Lake City outing. From semiarid and subtropical armchairs across the land, there arose a common refrain: “I could do that.Over the last 15 years, membership in the United States Curling Association doubled to 20,000. As Kate Caithness, the president of the World Curling Federation, put it to me recently: “The U.S., you are our sleeping giant. The sleeping giant has woken up.” Afghanistan, Brazil, Guyana, Mexico, Mongolia, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have also begun to embrace the sport, whose chief appeal may lie in its ability to revive a singular crushed dream: “You see ice dance or skiing and think, I’ll never be an Olympic champion,” Caithness says. “But curling, you can.Skerkowski is counting on this year’s Games to spur hundreds of Tampa residents to join his club. In anticipation, he will forgo league play for the summer to offer more beginner clinics. He dreams of soon having a rink with dedicated curling ice, perfect, unscarred by hockey skates. More people could play — and practice, which, because of scheduling and cost restrictions, is impossible now.You got my drink?” Skerkowski called to Lisa, having repaired from the LongHorn to the skate complex, where they set about unloading equipment from the bed of his pickup. “This is Diet Coke,” Wycoff said, handing him a travel mug.Because I am an old man, this is Captain Morgan and Diet Coke,” Skerkowski said as they crossed the parking lot and entered the facility. “Hello, guys!” he bellowed at no one in particular. “Curling night! Curling night!”Eager to help him set up were two young fathers whose purple pants featured cats shooting lightning bolts out of their paws. “Bernie said: ‘You want to be different. You want to stand out,’?” one of them, Sean Moats, explained. “So I got on Amazon and I looked up ‘wild curling pants,’ and these are the ones that came up.Their squad watched the United States Olympic team trials in Omaha, Neb., on TV. “We were studying it so hard,” Moats said. “We would spend the entire night talking about it.He will not do anything but this,” a teammate’s wife said about her own husband.You never know,” Moats went on. “We might have new dreams of taking it all the way. We could be the first team from Wesley Chapel.Two thousand forty-seven!” his teammate Jimmy Burd interrupted. (There will not, in fact, be a Winter Olympics in 2047.) “This is how unknown it is,” Burd said. “I have a bunch of friends in the area. I told them, ‘Hey, does anyone want to help sponsor our curling team?’ And somebody actually said to me, ‘Like biceps curls?’Ladies and gentlemen! May I have your attention, please?” Skerkowski’s voice ricocheted off the boards. He called roll for the teams and informed them that the pitchers of beer being carted out onto the ice were courtesy of the club. (Pairing curling and imbibing is tradition, presumably begun with Scotch.) “I’m so excited,” he continued. “Look at this beautiful trophy. That’s solid gold. At least that’s what I reported on my tax returns.”Scott Gargasz, one of the club’s only experienced players, passed around copies of a booklet he wrote for the league, “Curling Rules and Etiquette.” Skerkowski encouraged everyone to read it and offer feedback. “Remember, despite what you all think, it’s not about Bernie. It’s about the Tampa Bay Curling Club and making the sport of curling a better place for everyone in Tampa Bay,” he said by way of adjournment. There was a general hurrah, and then the teams took the ice.Before long, the cumulative shushing sounds of stones over pebbled ice, like that of waves on a beach, suffused the arena. Unlike other pastimes in which players alternate between inactivity and rolling (bowling), tossing (cornhole) or pushing (shuffleboard) roundish projectiles at a target, all four teammates participate in delivering all the team’s stones.Joy and Dennis Meyers, who identified themselves as the club’s No. 1 (and so far only) fans, came every weekend to cheer for their son, Michael, 42, and grandson, Chris, 15. “This is a fun league, I’ll tell you what,” Dennis said. “What I like about it is there’s no hotheads.After two hours, a 10-minute warning bell signaled the final throws of the night; winners and losers alike then headed to the bar upstairs for a club-sponsored pizza party. Except for Skerkowski himself, who lingered, as was his habit, to bait bystanders with a free tutorial.The rock is going to pull you down the ice — look up!” he hollered at one participant. “You’re always looking up! Look at that! Woooo!You’re afraid to push off because you might hurt yourself, right?” he asked another, adding, without a trace of sarcasm, “It’s O.K. to be scared.When it was finally time to cede the ice, he shooed away this latest batch of doubtless future Olympic hopefuls. “Now,” he informed them, “we go drink.Team GB's all-Scottish curling teams believe they can help the country hit their target of at least five medals at next month's Winter Olympics.The women's rink, skipped by Eve Muirhead, and the men, led by Kyle Smith, are both optimistic, if not expectant, that they can get on the podium in Pyeongchang.For Muirhead, the goal is at least emulating the bronze earned in 2014.I'd be very disappointed if we didn't [make the] podium," Muirhead said.That's what we've been working hard for [during] the last four years, to get a medal round our neck."Smith's rink are aiming for one better than the silver that Team GB won four years ago.This will be Muirhead's third Olympics, but this time there's a twist, with her brothers Thomas and Glen, part of Smith's rink."Having been to an Olympic Games before and had a taste of medal success, it makes you hungry to hit the podium again," Eve Muirhead said.We've worked really hard to be in the best position we can be going into the Olympics and we'd be happy if we come back knowing we've played the best we can, and hopefully that'll mean hitting the podium.This one's going to be a little bit extra special, having the chance to compete along with my two brothers, and my mum going out to support as well, it's going to be really cool.Of course I'll have to concentrate on my own competition but I'll be keeping an eye out for their results and watching as many of their games as I can."Thomas Muirhead admits that his big sister has been a role model, as he aspires to match her achievements.Through my whole curling career, I've watched Eve succeed at every level she's played at. That's put fire in my belly and made me want to succeed," he said.They are not the only siblings involved, though.Kyle Smith's brother, Cammy, plays lead for the men's rink and although they have competed together since 2013, including at last year's European Championships where they won silver, the Olympics will be their biggest stage yet.It's brilliant to be going to such a huge event, where the eyes of the world are on you and to get to share that with your brother really makes it a special moment for our family," Kyle Smith told BBC Scotland.There's a real pride we've managed to get this far together.David Murdoch's rink won silver for Team GB in Sochi and Kyle Smith believes a similar achievement is not beyond them.It's definitely something we hope to be able to do. They had a brilliant Olympics and did very well to get the silver medal," he added.The teams travel to Japan next week to acclimatise and put the finishing touches to their preparations at a holding camp before heading out to Gangneung, where the curling will take place.Athletes are preparing to take to the ice come February when the 2018 Winter Olympics kick off in Pyeongchang, but at least one group of Team USA stars won’t be using skates.One of the most fascinating — and fun to watch — sports at the Games is curling. Here’s everything you need to know about the unique sport, which made its Olympic debut way back in 1924.How is it played?Curling is a team sport, with four players on each of the two teams facing off. The match takes place on a rectangular sheet of ice with a target — aka the house — at each end. Each member of the team takes on a specific role, either lead, second, vice and skip, according to Team USA’s website.In that order, each member of the team takes turn throwing two rocks — 44 pound granite stones — toward their team’s house. Both teams alternate turns. After all 16 stones have been thrown — or, as it’s called in the sport, delivered — the score for that round is decided.Scores are based on how close the team’s stones are placed to the center of their house, as compared to their opponent.So where do the brooms come into play? Players use two types — a brush and a long-bristled brush. Players sweep the brooms on the ice to either increase the distance traveled by the rock or redirect its path.The final roster for the 2018 U.S. Men’s and Women’s Olympic curling teams was just decided last last year, with previous Olympians on both teams.The men’s team’s lead, John Shuster, has competed in four Olympics. Other veteran team members include John Landsteiner and Joe Polo. Two athletes new to the Olympics —Tyler George and Matt Hamilton — round out the men’s team.Nina Roth will lead the women’s team, which will mark the Olympic debut for all five members. The other competitors for the U.S. are Tabitha Peterson, Aileen Geving, Becca Hamilton, and Cory Christensen.The mixed doubles team is a family affair: siblings Becca Hamilton and Matt Hamilton will compete together, in addition to as part of the women’s and men’s teams, respectively.How many medals has the U.S. won in the sport?
The U.S. has only medaled once in the years since the sport was reintroduced to the Olympic program in 1998. The Men’s team took bronze in 2006.The 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea are set to begin on Feb. 8. The 23rd Winter Games will commence with the debut of the Mixed Doubles curling tournament, which is one of four new Olympic events that the International Olympic Committee added to the schedule in 2015.Curling matches will take place every day over the two weeks in Pyeongchang, creating an exciting, but busy schedule for athletes and fans.Commencing with the opening ceremonies on Feb. 9, CBC will air three blocks of Olympic programming each day. Olympic Games Primetime will run from 7 pm to 2 am ET, Olympic Games Overnight will air from 2 am until 6 am ET and Olympic Games Morning will run from 6 am 'til 12 pm ET.Kaitlyn Lawes and John Morris will look to keep Team Canada's gold medal streak going as the pair of former Olympic champions team up for the debut of the Mixed Doubles tournament. Lawes won gold as part of the women's team that went undefeated (11-0) in Sochi, while Morris helped the men's team top the podium on home ice at Vancouver 2010. The Winnipeg natives could face tough competition from the Swiss duo of Martin Rios and Jenny Perret, who took home the 2017 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship in April. The Chinese team of Ba Dexin and Wang Rui finished third at that event and took home the silver in 2016, making them another potential medal candidate in Pyeongchang.Kevin Koe and his team of Marc Kennedy, Brent Laing, and Ben Hebert will look to win a fourth straight men's curling gold for Team Canada after sealing qualification with a dramatic win at the Canadian Curling Olympic Trials. The group has been playing together since the 2014-15 season and captured gold at the WCF World Championships in 2016. Koe and Laing will be making their first Olympic apperances, while Kennedy and Herbert return to the Games after winning gold at Vancouver 2010. While Canada has some new faces, Sweden returns the team that won bronze at Sochi 2014 and silver at the 2017 Ford World Men's Curling Championship last April. They will likely contend for a medal, as could Great Britain and Switzerland.On the women's side, Rachel Homan skips a team that also has expectations of winning gold for Team Canada. Homan, Emma Miskew, Joanne Courtney, and Lisa Weagle solidified themselves as the favorites by going undefeated (13-0) en route to winning the 2017 World Women's Curling Championship in Beijing, China. They carried that momentum through the Canadian trials and look to deliver again in Pyeongchang. Great Britain will pose a threat in stopping them as the team skipped by Eve Muirhead returns after bringing home the bronze medal at Sochi 2014. Sweden, the silver medalists in Russia, will be a threat to top the podium after finishing third in March's CPT World Women's Curling Championship 2017. John Brown has lovingly polished each and every one of the curling stones to be used at the Pyeongchang Olympics, buffing and burnishing the granite in a workshop whose machines look older than him. The 52-year-old says he will be “chuffed to bits” to see them thrown in South Korea.The former fitter, who has worked at sole Olympic stone suppliers Kays Curling for 12 years, also expects to have his hackles raised by some of the accompanying television commentary.They say ‘Oh, maybe the stones aren’t running right’ and that. It’s not the stones; It’s the ice, it’s the player,” he told Reuters, stepping outside for a break in the steady Scottish drizzle.It’s nothing to do with the stones. Every stone is so closely matched, it’s unbelievable.Entering the Kays factory in Mauchline, a small town some 50km south of Glasgow, is like stepping back in time to a pre-computer age of noisy, dusty industrial lathes and hands-on craftsmanship.The yard outside is littered with granite, and slabs with more holes than a slice of Emmental.Founded in 1851, Kays has occupied its present site -- down the road from the former home of Scottish poet and ‘Bard of Ayrshire’ Robert Burns -- since 1911 and first supplied Olympic stones in 1924.The family-owned business employs just 16 people, their numbers dwarfed by some of the television crews who traipse to this quiet corner of rural Scotland from around the world in search of curling’s roots.It also has an exclusive license to extract granite from Ailsa Craig, an uninhabited island 16km off the western coast of Scotland and visible on a clear day from Royal Troon and Trump Turnberry golf clubs.Once known as ‘Paddy’s Milestone’, a prominent marker on the sea journey between Belfast and Glasgow in the Firth of Clyde, the island has a Blue Hone granite found nowhere else in the world.“The body of the stone, the main bit with the striking band where they bump off each other, is made of Ailsa Craig Common Green,” says Kays director Mark Callan over a coffee in the kitchen of a house that is also an office.It’s a very open structure granite so it takes impacts very well and is very ‘springy’; they (the stones) bounce off each other very, very well.However, you don’t want to make a running surface with this granite because it is porous. Being on ice, they would suck in water and moisture, freeze and then crack and break.Kays extracted 2,000 tonnes from Ailsa Craig in 2013, using a military landing craft to bring the stone back to the mainland, and have enough left to last beyond the 2022 Beijing Olympics.A typical boulder weighs between three to five tonnes, with each sent up to Aberdeen to be cut into slabs before being brought back down to Mauchline.They are then cored to produce 25kg ‘cheeses’ -- ultimately reduced to 20kg with Blue Hone inserts fixed to the top and bottom with an aircraft-grade epoxy resin that never sets.If we used a glue that set, because curling stones and the like can be subject to fairly extreme temperature changes, the glue would crack and become brittle and fall out,” explained Callan. A hole is drilled through the middle for bolt and handle and the dull stone is polished manually on a water-cooled turntable, using tin oxide before a ‘striking band’ is sand-blasted on.Each stone costs 470 pounds ($637.70) and the factory makes eight or nine a day -- an annual output of between 1,800 and 2,000 -- with a three month waiting list.The stones, 16 to a set, can last for up to 50 years.It’s not something you’re going to run out and buy every year,” said Callan.The Olympic curling competition starts with mixed doubles on Feb. 8, the day before the Games’ opening ceremony, and runs through to Feb. 25.The tournament stones were despatched to South Korea a year ago and the world body, which has a machine that can throw eight at once, has tested them for distance and curl.Dating from at least the 16th century when stones were thrown on frozen ponds in Scotland, curling, or ‘chess on ice’ as it has been dubbed, became a full Olympic sport only in 1998 but is rapidly expanding.We’ve got enquiries in at the moment from Qatar. We know the United Arab Emirates are very keen,“ said Callan. ”And they play a big competition every October in Hawaii.So our stones are scattered about the globe.” Brent Laing has been curling for nearly 30 years.For 20 of those years, he’s been an aspiring Olympian.Any time you achieve something you’ve been working on for 20 years, it’s a pretty cool feeling,” Laing said.Born in Meaford, Laing started curling in his grade three gym class.Laing said he grew up in a small town surrounded by curlers.My best buddy, Andy, and his parents curled. His dad was the icemaker.By 13, Laing and his friend had given up hockey to focus on curling.In 1998, curling was officially added to the Olympic program.Since then, Laing has had his sights set on a gold medal.Laing and his team took home the gold from the World Junior Curling Championships in Thunder Bay in 1998, and repeated in Sweden in 1999.Then as juniors his team has started to dominate some men’s bonspiels.“(We) started to realize we were onto something and had potential to set some lofty goals,” he said.In 2001 Laing came close to an Olympic trip.Five tries later, he is headed to the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.“You’re not going to see people get that many chances much longer,” Laing said. “It’s going to be much too difficult.To qualify for the Olympics, teams compete against the top teams in their country.In Canada, Laing said his team is one of nine.Eight or nine of the teams are among the top 10 in the world, and only one team gets to go,” Laing said.After four years of planning, Laing said, it all came down to 30 seconds and six inches.That’s the nature of the sport, it doesn’t matter how great or how poor you’ve been playing.Laing now lives in Simcoe County with his wife, Olympic gold medallist, Jennifer Jones, who brought home a gold medal from the 2014 Olympics in Sochi for women’s curling.Laing practises out of the Barrie Curling Club, a club he’s very familiar with.I played major league here. I couldn’t drive yet, so my mom and dad would drive me here every Tuesday night from Stayner, to play with local legend Bob Denny. And to learn from some of the better players in Barrie,” Laing said.Technically, Laing’s team is based in Calgary, with his home club officially the Glencoe and District Curling Club.As for what’s next, Laing said his serious curling career is nearing to an end.I will be done within four years, if not sooner,” said Laing. “It’s always been a balancing act. I had a job through all of it, and young kids and a wife.Laing is an operations manager for the family business, Weed Man Collingwood-Barrie.I’ve got a great boss, he happens to be my dad as well.Laing will head to the Olympics Feb. 3, spend four days in Japan for staging, training and practice, before arriving in Pyeongchang for the opening ceremonies. The curling competitions starts Feb. 14.
winter olympic 2018 live,olympic 2018 live,olympic 2018,watch olympic 2018 live,winter olympic 2018,winter olympic 2018 live online,winter olympic 2018 cbs sports,olympic 2018,olympic live,winter olympic live,winter olympic live online,olympic winter,olympic winter live,winter olympic 2018 curling,olympic 2018 curling,olympic 2018 curling live,watch olympic 2018 curling,opening ceremony live,watch curling live stream,curling 2018,curling live online,curling cbs sports,curling live tv,curling tv link