After you put a teflon pad under your shoe, the object of the game
is to grab a 42-pound rock and slide it as close as you can to a
target 130 feet away. Your teammates, armed with brooms, vigorously
sweep across the stone's path to draw it one way or the other.
Just don't call it bowling on ice. "There's a lot more to it than
that," says Iain Hueton, Ogden
Curling Club president.
Top-level play requires the finesse and agility of an ice skater
and the mental stamina of a golfer. But it's evident from the
league scene - there are curlers aged 15 to 70, male and female,
able-bodied and wheelchair-bound - that the sport is accessible to
everyone.
Hueton was born in
Scotland, the birthplace of curling, and reared
in
Canada, where two-thirds of the world's curlers live, yet it was
only after he moved to Ogden that he discovered the sport. Utah's
not exactly a hotbed of curling, but he's working on it.
Site: The Ice Sheet at Ogden.
Cost: Lessons $5.
Hours: 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, noon to 3 p.m. Thursday.
Season: October to March.
Details: (801) 399-8750,
www.utahcurling.com
HALFPIPE
Olympic snowboarders won't be riding any ordinary halfpipe at Park
City Mountain Resort. It's a "super" pipe. The latest innovation in
halfpipe riding, it's described as a bobsled track for
snowboarders.
A halfpipe is just that - a giant half-cylinder made out of snow,
350 feet long with 17-foot-high side walls - the perfect arena for
snowboarders to jump, spin, and flip through the air. From the
inside out, it looks like a manmade canyon.
The new design helps riders land more easily, so they can jump
higher. Now world-class riders like American Ross Powers are
busting air as much as 15 feet above the lip of the pipe. That's 32
feet off the ground!