Helen King - she of the Team King blog and now too old at twenty-one - brought her non-curling friend Joyce (nearest the camera) to watch some of the Columba Cream Scottish Women's Championship at Perth yesterday. She noted down some of the questions that Joyce posed about what was happening. A sort of 'questions you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask".These included:
1. Why does one person stand at the other end of the ice?
2. Why do they sweep the stones?
3. Why did they not sweep that stone into the circles?
4. Why did they have three people sweeping?
5. Why do they have stopwatches on their brushes?
6. Does it matter what colour of circle the stones land in?
7. Why did the other skip sweep their stone?
8. What are the clocks for?
9. What happens if you run out of time?
10. What kind of shoes are they wearing?
11. How does the scoring work?
12. Why is only one sole slippy?
13. Who decides the tactics?
14. Who goes first?
15. Why do you blank an end?
16. Do you always slide up the centre line (Ed note - I've removed the name of the team they were watching!)
17. What's a hack?
18. Is it not who has most stones in the circles that scores the most?
19. What are these women in black doing hovering around the end of the rink?
20. Is there any chance that we will see the bat?
Helen is working on the answers and is intending to publish these soon as "Joyce goes to watch the curling." The film rights are under discussion!
Pic © Skip Cottage
