You’ve seen curling in the Olympics. Now a club in Boise wants you to try it yourself
Curling is an unusual-looking sport: a stone gliding across a sheet of ice, players furiously scrubbing the surface with brooms. So every four years, when curling airs during the Winter Olympics, interest in the game, described as “chess on ice,” booms.
For members of the Boise Curling Club, that passion exists every year, and they’re capitalizing on the Olympic fever to try to recruit more die-hard fans.
The Boise Curling Club was founded in 2006. Each year it holds spring and fall leagues, an annual outdoor tournament called a bonspiel and a slew of Learn to Curl classes, which are especially popular in Winter Olympics years.
“Curling has taken over my life,” club president Jeff Salmans told a crowd of 30 people during a Learn to Curl clinic at Idaho IceWorld on Sunday night.
Salmans joined the club in 2009 and fell in love with the game. He’s hopeful some of the newcomers will feel the same way.
What are the rules of curling?
Every four years, Google searches for curling skyrocket. So do searches for “rules of curling” and “what is curling.”
“Curling is always a big hit on TV,” Salmans said. “A lot of people will look up, ‘Where can I find curling in my area?’ And people are often surprised that we have a club in Boise.”
The game, which began in Scotland in the 1500s, “looks funny,” Salmans conceded. “It’s unique, right? It’s different than most sports.”
Teams of four players face off on a stretch of ice, roughly 150 feet long by 15 feet wide, which is called a “sheet.” At either end of the sheet is a three-ringed target known as the “house.” Players take turns sliding eight granite stones — which weigh around 42 poundsapiece — toward the house to score points, guard their team’s stones and move opponents’ stones from the house. The team’s captain, or “skip,” stands near the house and directs the team’s strategy.
Players try to add rotation to the stone so it “curls” as it glides down the ice. Two other players act as sweepers, scrubbing the ice in front of the stone to clear the surface, reduce friction and try to direct the stone’s path.
In each round, known as an “end,” the team with a stone closest to the center of the house scores one point. If the winning team has additional stones that are closer to the center than their opponents’ closest stone, the winning team earns additional points. After eight to 10 ends, the team with the most points wins.
Salmans explains these rules in more detail at the start of each Learn to Curl clinic before newcomers head to the ice and try their hand at sliding, or “delivering,” the stone and sweeping the ice. They’re guided by club members, many of whom got their start in the sport at the same Learn to Curl classes.
Boise Curling Club hosts leagues, outdoor bonspiel
Izze Lee-Green, who joined the club in 2018, said she had been obsessed with watching the sport for more than a decade before attending a Learn to Curl class. Lee-Green said she was looking for a way to cope with anxiety and get out of her own head. She found focus and a sense of camaraderie on the curling sheet.
“When you get on the ice and glide down for the first time, it’s like nothing else in the world,” she said. “I love seeing how many people (attend the clinics), and I love seeing that sparkle in someone’s eye that I had.”
Many of the team’s members discovered the sport through the Winter Olympics. Jared Belsher said he signed up for a Learn to Curl class in 2010 after seeing the game. Since then, Belsher has served as president of the club and started an outdoor tournament that takes place in Stanley.
The Sawtooth Outdoor Bonspiel, which began in 2013, takes place the last weekend in January at the Stanley Ice Rink. Sixteen teams compete in the tournament, and competition is fierce before anyone even hits the ice — Belsher said registration filled up in under a minute for this year’s bonspiel.
“Outdoor curling is like the great equalizer,” Belsher said. Snow, outdoor ice conditions and weather conditions create an environment unlike the indoor rinks most curling teams play on. (Stanley is also one of the coldest places in the U.S., and temperatures dipped to -28 degrees during this year’s tournament.)
Typically the Boise Curling Club plays at Idaho IceWorld, where it hosts leagues in the fall and winter. Salmans said the club also has a three-week beginners league for people still getting used to the sport.
In the years since Salmans joined, the club’s membership has nearly doubled to about 75 people. Salmans said he hopes to continue to grow the club and would like it to become large enough to build its own indoor curling space.
Until then, he encourages Boise residents of all ages and abilities to join.
“We have everyone from a 13-year-old boy (in the club) to a 79-year-old man,” Salmans said. “Anyone can do this.”
Here’s how you can learn to curl in Boise
The Boise Curling Club has six more Learn to Curl clinics at Idaho IceWorld in the coming weeks: Sunday, Feb. 20, 7:00-8:30 p.m. and 8:00-9:30 p.m.; Saturday, Feb. 26, 8:30-10:00 p.m. and 9:30-11:00 p.m. and Saturday, March 5, 8:30-10:00 p.m. and 9:30-11:00 p.m.
You can register for the clinics online at BoiseCurlingClub.org. It’s $25 for adults to participate and $10 for children.
This story was originally published February 9, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
