Curling Crash Course: Six Games, One Beginner

The Saint headed to Dundee to learn about Scotland's favourite winter sport

With the Winter Olympic Games well underway, what better time is there to watch some curling, one of Scotland’s oldest homegrown sports? I travelled to the Dundee Ice Arena to watch St Andrews’ very own team. 

My knowledge of winter sports comes almost entirely from Mario and Sonic at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, so expectations going in naturally had to be tempered. I tried to familiarise myself with the rules beforehand, but any tactical analysis was very much off the cuff. From what I could see, there were two main strategies: Some teams simply aimed for the centre of the target (house), focusing on their own game, while others were on a path of destruction. 

Teams swept so aggressively that they would knock their opponents’ stones miles away from the house. The curling equivalent of letting them know you’re there early. Continuing the football references, I saw the most Arsenal-esque, negative tactics of all time from one team: Instead of making any attempt to score on their own merit, they placed all their stones in front of the house, so that their opponents would be forced to hit them into place and sacrifice their own stones. Watching this atrocity felt like being the victim of Arteta-Ball, with ten centre-backs standing in a line, eventually waiting to win through an own goal or Gyökeres tap-in. 

St Andrews didn’t resort to such tactics, winning 7-2 on the night. Admittedly, this drubbing did come against bottom-of-the-league Lindsays, but the win still takes them up to eighth in the Thornton League. The league consists of twelve teams, including Braeknowe’s first and second teams, but it’s Panmure who sit at the top of the table. Teams come from across Fife, with some teams making three-hour round trips on game day.

Almost every player on every team was, shall we say, seasoned, except for one St Andrews youngster who was about half my age. Clearly, then, the future of the club is bright.

The main thing I really hadn’t anticipated coming into the matches was the competitiveness. What seemed at first like a friendly match between friends quickly became a silent shootout. Smiling was kept to a minimum, and there was little in the way of small talk, the conversational ice proving hard to break. 

The communication from the captain — or skip, as it’s known in curling — consisted of little more than monosyllabic growls at their teammates, akin to a farmer directing his sheepdogs. The crowd wasn’t sure how to react to what was going on, possibly because I was the only one in the crowd and had never watched curling before. Not even the youngster’s mum was in the stands. Even with a fraction of the remaining 2,399 seats of the Dundee Ice Arena being filled, I could imagine the experience being very different.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed my time at the curling, and would now consider myself an expert in the sport. There will be matches taking place every day until the women’s final on 22 February, making now the perfect time for newcomers to get into the sport.

Photo by Patrick Maitland