Curling, a game similar to lawn bowls but played on ice. Two teams of four players (given the titles lead, second, third, and skip) participate in a curling match. Each player slides round stones, concave on the bottom and with a handle on the top, across the ice of a rink or a natural ice field toward the tee, or button, which is a fixed mark in the centre of a circle (called the house) marked with concentric bands. The object of the game is for each side to get its stones closest to the centre.
Each player delivers two stones alternately with the opponent beginning with the lead of each team and ending with the skip, who is also the team captain. One point is awarded for each stone that comes to rest nearer the tee than does any rival stone. A team can score up to eight points with the 16 stones delivered in an end, or inning, unless no stone is in the house or the nearest opposing stones are equidistant, in which case there is no score. Blocking and knocking out an opponent’s stones are important strategies of the sport. The usual number of ends in a match is 8 to 12. In international competition a match always consists of 10 ends; ties are broken by the addition of extra ends until a winner emerges.
Curling is associated especially with Scotland, where the game dates to the early 16th century. Paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder dating from about the same time are evidence that the game was also played in the Low Countries, but it was Scotland that promoted the game worldwide. The Grand Caledonian Curling Club was organized at Edinburgh in 1838 (royal patronage made it the Royal Caledonian Curling Club in 1843) with the announced purpose of becoming an international body. The International Curling Federation was founded there in 1966.
Credit : Britannica
Picture Credit : Google
