By Eric Baxter
Staff Writer

Mirror/Eric Baxter From 1800s Scotland, to Torino, to Greater Manchester, discover the curling life.

The 2006 Winter Olympics is the scene of compressed human drama – close calls, falls, the thrill of victory, ad nauseum. Yet in the midst of high speed, whirlwind games, one of the slowest sports in Torino, Italy, is capturing the most attention. Curling, it seems, has stepped out of the dark ice shed and into the bright light of the tournament floor.

“I don’t know why it took so long. I knew it was a great sport,” said Peter Lyons, a 30-year-plus veteran of the ice sheets and member of the Nashua Curling Club. The club is the only place for curling ice in the state, and is one of more than 135 curling clubs, with more than 15,000 curlers across the country. Lyons will also be an offi cial at the upcoming Men’s World Curling competition coming to the Tsongas Arena in April.

“This is a very social sport. It atttracts a lot of people. It’s a lifetime sport, and it’s one of the purest ‘team’ sports being played,” said Lyons. “It takes all four players to make a shot. It can’t be done without all four players being involved.”

Lyons’ words ring true for the many people who watched Olympic curling, which caused a viewer spike on whatever station was airing the event. One player places their foot against the hack, set behind the house, and pushes off . They glide forward and release the stone, also known as the rock, just short of the hog line, giving a bit of spin depending on if the ice is heavy, fast, or swingy. Two sweepers in front of the stone use brooms to rub and, slightly, melt the ice in front of the rock, which weighs between 42 and 44 pounds, thereby reducing friction and allowing it to continue its glide. The skipper, or team leader, directs the sweepers and thrower. The idea is to glide the rock into the house closest to the button, or the center of the large bullseye. A full game consists of anywhere from two to 10 ends, an end being defi ned as curling from one end of the 93-foot sheet to the other.

A simple game, really. Thank the Scottish for that. They formalized and popularized the game in the 1700s, and formed the mother club, the Royal Caledonian Curling Club in the 1800s, though the game’s true origins are shrouded in time. With an acknowledged history topping almost a half millennia, curling is just now starting to gain popularity among non-curlers.

“Most of us played bocce growing up, and I watched curling at the (2002) Salt Lake (Olympic) games,” said Paul Robotti during a recent weekend at the Nashua Curling Club ice sheets, located at the Nashua Country Club.

Robotti and several friends had traveled from New York City to try their hand at curling for Robotti’s bachelor party. His wedding to his fi ancé Maya was set for Feb. 24, at the Chelsea Piers in New York City.

“We’ve all been in sports forever, and I always wanted to try this, so when they asked what I wanted to do, I said I wanted to go curling,” said Robotti.

Like many people new to the sport, the group was surprised at how diffi cult it was.

“I saw it on the TV, and I thought, ‘It can’t be that bad.’ But there’s a lot more to it. I’d like to try it for a week or two, get a little better. I can’t, but it’s something I will defi nitely do later in life,” he said.

Curling is often characterized as chess on ice, an apt, but overused, expression.

“It takes about three hours to learn the game, but it can take year and years to become accomplished,” said club secretary Gwen Krailo, who was also helping instruct the group.

Krailo was slated to judge in Torino, but passed up the chance in favor of being a judge at the Men’s World competition. But she did judge at Salt Lake, and curling has taken her from Iceland to Alaska and throughout the NorthEast and Canada. Her license plate reads “LV2CURL.”

“It’s either ‘Live to Curl,’ or ‘Love to Curl.’ Either way, you know I hate (the game),” she said with a laugh.

There’s a good chance the men from the bachelor party will take to curling at some point. The esoteric rules, the elaborate good sportsmanship, and the strategy have a certain eff ect on some people. But the real essence of the game is its social nature.

“You can be anywhere in the world, and if (as a curler) you found someone who curled, you’d have an instant friend. It’s that kind of acknowledgement of the sport. It gets into the blood,” said Alan Cobb, 73, a Nashua Club curler from the Manchester area.

Cobb, and his wife Patricia, 73, began curling in 1959 at the Utica Curling Club in New York, one of the oldest continuously active curling clubs in the United States.

“Curling was a very social activity, and we had a lot of friends and family involved in the sport, so there was a lot of pressure to join,” said Cobb.

Cobb’s older brother Arthur, now 90 and living in Florida, was the former chairman of the United States Curling Association, and was instrumental in promoting the sport to the International Olympic Committee. Curling was an exhibition sport at the Olympics in 1924, 1932, 1992 and 1994, before becoming a medal event in 1998. When the couple moved to New Hampshire in 1978 it was curling that helped them establish a circle of friends.

“After one year of curling, we knew more people in the greater Nashua area than we would have ever met in the 28 years we’ve been here,” said Cobb.

For Cobb, the physical aspect of curling has become a little more diffi cult with time, but the strategy and social aspects of the game have remained important.

It was the social side of the sport that fi rst drew Ann and Larry Richards to curling.

“I never knew much about curling, and I couldn’t imagine myself out there. But we signed up for Friday’s couples curling. That fi rst time I couldn’t wait to get off the ice, it was cold, I didn’t understand the sport. But as you play, and get to appreciate the sport, you don’t notice the cold so much. (Curling) is a lot of fun, and it’s competitive, but very social. I golf in the summer, I curl in the winter,” said Larry Richards.

Richards said he was like a lot of people watching Olympic curling for the fi rst time, adding he can see a lot of those people following the same path he did.

“I think it’s a great sport. If you asked me four years ago, I’d have said, ‘What’s curling? Who’s interested?’ Now, I try to recruit curlers all the time. It’s a great sport – you go out there and curl, then you go in eat, have a few drinks – it’s a lot of fun.”