May 5, 2022 • 43 mins
The time has come! In this special episode, the one and only Super Producer Max Williams takes point on the research into one of his long-standing fascinations: the curious sport of curling. As Max schools the guys on everything from the basic rules to the surprisingly long history of this unique sport, they -- and you -- walk away with a deeper understanding of "The Spirit of Curling."
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Let's give an extra special
couple of hands to our one and only super producer,
Mr Max Williams, who hold the phone also ran research
on today's episode running Point. Thanks for wearing a couple
(00:51):
of different hats today, Max, did you hear my one
handed clap? Max? I did, and I saw it. I
very much appreciate it. I know no one else can
see it, but I saw it, and I appairly appreciate.
What does running interference mean? Is that a good thing
or a bad thing? Running interference is a good thing
if it's someone on your team. If it's someone on
the other team, then they're they're interfering with you, trying
(01:14):
to get I'm wondering. I don't know. We'll get into
its day. But it's just like curling seems to be
largely like it's like the team versus the ice and
the stones. There's not really much interference running, is there. Well,
we're about to find out. They called me Ben, You're no.
Let's let me tell you one thing about Max Williams.
(01:36):
I was saying this off air about the guy earlier.
He loves four things. I think we did the list right, Uh, model, trains, curling, sports,
and star trek. Right, that was the list we came
up with. These are the only things that Max legs,
the only things. Honestly, the only thing is a pretty
(01:57):
big VENN diagram though the piece of the it's like,
you know, I really like that you guys have curling
and sports separate and not a sport. Currently you're telling me,
are you serious? Well, no, you know, after today's episode,
I think you might have a little bit of a
different opinion about that. Let's sets. But it wasn't adopted
(02:19):
in the Olympics until nineteen, which I was not aware of.
It's it's a relatively recent edition and has picked up
a lot of steam, I think largely because it's so
incomprehensible to the casual observer. Yeah, it's kind of like
it's I would put curling there with cricket. It's one
of those It's one of those sports that you can
watch and not understand unless you are aware of the rules.
(02:43):
Otherwise a lot of the movements and strategies may not
make a ton of sense. So with being a curling
new beat myself. We're grateful for the chance to learn
here and dive into some of the ridiculous history. They
said it surre hounding this sport, and Max you had
opened up with a great point about the Winter Olympics,
(03:05):
where he said, yes, they have some pretty ridiculous sports,
including stuff in the past like ski during which is
you describe it as water skiing on snow with a
horse instead of a boat. And then uh, you got
a couple of others here as well. Give it to Max.
These are these are your fines. I was not aware
(03:27):
of a single one of these, except maybe the skiing
one with the gun, but I think I may have
just seen that in the James Bond movie and sort
of like, uh, corelated those two things into one. But
I don't think they're related. I mean, I gotta, I
gotta mid like when it came through scioraging and bandy.
I had never heard of these either. But there's like banding,
which is like weird. It's described as a weird hybrid
(03:49):
of hockey and soccer on ice, so it's like it's
not it's like field hockey on eyes. That's what I
heard people say which it brings up the questions like
when field hockey on ice just bet ice hockey, but
I don't know that's what it was now. But the
weird one I found it was ski ballet. It's like
ballet while you're on skis, like you're like putting your
pole in the ground doing flips and stuff. I don't know,
(04:10):
it's really weird. Is it synchronized like swimming or is
it more a lone wolf thing. I think it's the
lone wolf thing. I think it lasted to the nineties.
I think it was in the Olympics in the nineties,
but it's not around anymore. But you know, we still
have biathlete and with personal favorite of mine, where you're
literally skiing across the country and then you stopped to
just shoot things like what like targets or squirrels or like,
(04:32):
you know, snow I mean, I think snow men would
be cool, but you know, I said, I said snow
birds now, but snow men would probably be less gory.
But yeah, I like that idea, a little snow men
kind of posing as like Nazi or something like that.
That's where again I'm James bonding, and again I'm trying
to bonding in again. We also did a pretty great
episode about uh skiing attacks. Remember that heist. Yeah, so
(04:56):
I think that's where our minds are going. I'm cornslating
several things right now. Oh that's I mean, that's great.
That's that's the that's the result of our beautiful minds
at play a long time ridiculous historians. You've probably heard
ever since Max joined us to class up the show
occasional references to his his love of and fascination with curling.
(05:21):
To give you the long and short of this, there
are two teams in every game. Each team has four players.
They take turns throwing rocks down a long, thin sheet
of ice, and then other people on their teams take
these broom ish tools and they start sweeping the ice. Matt,
(05:42):
you also note there is a lot of yelling in curling,
and you've been on record saying sometimes you think it
it doesn't get the respect it deserves. So today we're
going to correct that. But I think maybe Noll, first
we gotta talk about some of the some of the rules.
I had no idea how this stuff worked until honestly,
(06:03):
until I started hanging out with Max, totally no I'
mean either um, and again, because it's one of these
things where you know baseball, you can kind of get
it watching it for a little while with a little
bit of background knowledge. Football maybe a little less. So
I still don't understand quite how football wars. What is
it down? I don't even know. Somebody rights and let
(06:23):
me know. But curling, it's it's this very interesting, almost
ritualistic activity and it is a little hard to kind
of suss what is going on. So we're gonna do
you all a solid and give you uh curling one
oh one straight from the NBC Olympics website actually, as
as the source Max found for this, and they should
know because it's one of the most popular Winter Olympic sports.
(06:48):
Um in the game. Yeah, yeah, so everybody throws two
stones any game there. There aren't any people who only sweep.
There aren't any any people who only throw stones. The
stones are pretty heavy too. Don't think about hockey puck.
These bad boys are like forty two pounds. They're pure granite.
(07:09):
Always thought the stones were a little more bluesy than heavy.
Ben never mind. Yeah, it's a music joke. Yeah, there's
a music joke. Yes, thank you. The the these teams.
Like we said, they take turns throwing these stones down
this sheet of ice, which is about a d fifty
(07:30):
ft or traditionally and then what they're what they're trying
to do is like it's almost like that game where
you toss a coin at a wall or a baseboard
and try to get closest to the wall. Or maybe
it's almost like cornhole. If if you guys remember that
they're trying to get the stones inside the circular rings
that are called the house, the house, the house of
(07:53):
the sliding rings. They call that. I would be the
name of the kung Fu movie or the folk song
about curling. You know, it reminds me of you're right
about the corn corn hoole um, which is a name
with the so silly that I hate to even say
it out loud. It is fun, though, it's fun, you know,
backyard game UM can fold up into a nice little
portable suitcase situation with all your bags and your little
hole UM. But I think of Max, I want to
(08:16):
check you on this um game called the tonk also
known as bocci ball, where it's about it's about proximity
to a peg. So is there's a there's like a
rash of these backyard kind of proximity games or like
horseshoes where you can knock somebody else's thing and the
closest with the slideyness of it all. I was so
ship curling with shuffleboard. Yes, you know, you actually got
(08:38):
like the examples we give to people when they're asking,
it's like scoring wise, it's botch ball, um like play style,
like what it looks like, it's shovel board. But actually, ben,
I really like yours about cornhole, because that's that's really good.
The only difference is cornhole is scored differently. Botch Ball
score wise is the closest, all right, and we know
that there are When it comes to curling, there are
(09:00):
a couple of very key beginning rules. First rule, don't
talk about curling kidding. The first rule is first rule.
The longest time nobody did that was a rule that
was not a problem until came around and changed the game.
We're about to get where we may be in danger
from big curling folks. This might be the stuff they
(09:20):
don't want you to know. Different show. The first rule
is the rings mark how close your stone is to
that sweet spot in the middle. They don't mark how
much your shot is worth. So every stone inside that
ring is worth one point. And this means that if
a stone is barely touching the furthest circle, it is
(09:43):
still worth the same amount of points as a stone
directly in the middle, directly on the button. Give me
just say it to you. You just said it been
like in the way people would say it as a phrase,
but on the button. You ever heard someone say that
for like getting something just right? Max, that's a curling reference,
or is or the others are just kind of like
parallel parallel. I have no idea, so I'm gonna stay
(10:04):
with the curling reference, and everything comes from curling. Everything, Max, ever,
is a curling reference that we just didn't get for
like years, which is reframings of conversations. So each game,
you know, I'm talking about downs. I know what a
down is, guys, I'm just playing up my sports idiocy.
(10:24):
But an end is what it's called in curling. It's
sort of like an inning in baseball. Or I guess, well,
I guess in football there's a quarter and then the
quarter is divided into downs. Is that right? Downs are
like the thing first down, second down, third down, and
that's the end of the quarter. Is am I right
about that? Max? Kind of it's yeah, it's like a down. Yeah,
(10:46):
thank you. It makes no sense and it does have
by the way, a dubious fact about American football, it
has the worst commercial to play ratios of any sport
uh in history by a wide margin. But a down
is like when a team as possession of a ball.
(11:08):
So if team Max Max just picking animal, it doesn't
matter podcasts. Okay, So if the Maximilian Bobcats are playing
the Casey La Bushes and the Bobcats have the ball
and they're trying to they're trying to get to the
end zone and make a score, then they can they
It's kind of like they get four chances to get
(11:31):
it across the field if they like, if they fumble
or they like get you know, fifteen yards forward before
they get tackled, then that's like first down and right,
But aren't aren't the aren't there? Isn't the game delineated
into a series? I mean, if that's their chances, then
it goes to the other side and then they get
a number of chances and then that ends a portion
(11:51):
of the game. Or are they unrelated? So it's time based.
Football is comic conglomeration of multiple like sports is rules
and stuff. It's a later sports, so it's got a
lot like you can see, like I got a lot
of soccer, and then like other sports who have evolved
from soccer, like hockey and stuff like that. But it's
it's all a metaphor for war anyways. It's a metaphor
(12:12):
for napoleotic warfare. And I think maybe that's why football
is so popular. But alstilly Whiten doesn't do it for me.
And the more I read about curling, Max, and the
more I mean, I give you a little guff about
it out of love, but it just seems like a
pretty chill, peaceful kind of sport, like I mean, because
you're you're helping each other out. It's team base. You're
not really fighting each other, You're just fighting against the
(12:32):
the ice, you know, and gravity. It seems meditative, which
I think is what I like about it. So once
all these shots have been thrown, you get to the
scoring portion. You calculate scores by looking at the closest
stones to the button. Whichever team has the closest shot
to the center gets one point, and if that team
(12:54):
has the second closest shot, they get two points, and
if they have the third closest they get three, and
on and on. But if the opposing team has a
shot closer, then that's where scoring stops. So like, if
Team Ghostbusters got the closest thing, they would get a point.
(13:14):
But then if their opponent, Team Police Academy had the
second closest, they would just get one point. We were
talking off air, some of our fellow ridiculous historians maybe saying, guys,
what's what's the history here? You're telling us about the
rules of curling, and I think you're doing a great job,
(13:37):
hopefully that's what you're saying to us, But what what
about the history? I suggest we take just a second
for a moment with Max. Here. Max, let's do some
personal ridiculous history. How did you get involved in this
whole curling thing to begin with? Did you invent curling? No,
curling very much predates me, you and even nol and
(13:59):
even Matt like you know, way before us. But um so,
I am like from Atlanta, this is my home, but
I was actually born in Detroit. I moved here when
I was six. And here's the thing about living in
Detroit at least in the nineties, is you got Canadian
public television? What do you think Canadian public television showed
all the time curling and kids in the Hall reruns?
Probably in the hall, Yeah, in the hall. Yeah, we
(14:23):
got the entire box set, like a room over from here.
But um, I remember like watching curling as a kid
and being like, oh, it's so cool. Then I moved
down to Atlanta and then there was nothing, like no
one had even heard of it. I mean, granted, there's
not really nice sports down Atlanta for people who don't know,
Atlanta is really hot, and so I mean I've alway's
just been something, especially because of the Olympics. And then
(14:43):
it's like, you know, got more popular, and like the
two thousands and tens got more popular, and then I
was just like, yeah, let's get into the sport. Why
don't we try to figure out how to play this sport?
All right? Max, Now that we have a little bit
of your personal curling history, which I don't know, it's
just you guys. You your family, man, I'll tell you
you and your other Alex who composed this banging bob uh,
your parents, You're all like very interesting people who have
(15:06):
very interesting and sort of off the beaten path hobbies
and and interests. I mean, your brother has a whole
podcast about that called Ephemeral that you work on. It's
just about like just odd pieces of esoterica throughout culture
and history and things that would otherwise kind of go unnoticed.
You and your family are people that notice that kind
of stuff, and I think it's really cool And this
(15:27):
is a great example. It would take a special person
to see such a strange and and uh esoteric kind
of sport that on the onset doesn't seem particularly inviting
and be like, no, I'm gonna find a way to
make this inviting. This is this speaks to me in
some way. Um, so kudos for that. But you wrote
up this amazing we're trying to trying to invite people
(15:48):
into the world of curling by starting off with getting
your head around some of the rules, and Max, you
wrote up this amazing scenario. Uh the scenario to to
to quick terrify it about like how how a round
of play would go? Can you walk us through that
and we'll kind of well, we'll help pull chime in
as needed. But you've got some very fun little hypothetical
(16:08):
uh team team names that I think will help everyone
really get get an understanding of how this goes down.
All right, So here I'm gonna set it up real quick.
So let's to say we have two teams. We have
a Team Noll and we have a Team Bend. So
Team Noll there's four people. Remember on these teams, there's
just four slightly different versions of Noels. So we got
Nerdy Doll, we got a biker Knoll, we got an
(16:30):
invisible Knoll, and we have a wizard Knoll. And now
we look over a Team Ben. It's just four identical Bends.
Like these are completely the same, all same, except maybe
very different hats or something like that. You know, Yeah,
each of Ben's hat incarnations Ben Ben sort of like
a multi hat kind of dude anyway, so it could
be each one of his like hat forms. Right, there's
(16:51):
the there's yeah, Ben, please the other one. You got
a really nice um kind of newsy hat you wear
some times that I really like. Sure, yes, and let's
go for it. So there's uh so okay, so these
these guys are head to head. They've played there first round,
right or excuse me, first end first hand? Yes, and
(17:14):
so after the first end, Team Noel has like the
first and the second closest shot to the center. So
at the end of this we totaled it up and boom,
two points for Team Noel. But now we're gonna go
to the second end. Now Here, at the end of
the second end, Team Ben has the closest shot, the
third closest shot, the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and
ninth closest shot. But Team no after a magical shot
(17:37):
by Wizard Dole. We don't know how he did it,
but it was just I just made a sound effect
and just said pew, and everything just kind of fell
into place right, and so and how he lies the
second closest shot. So that's not eight points between Ben,
that is just one point because it is the order
or the shot rock. Whoever has the closest shot Rock
gets the point. Whoever a second gets two points. But
(17:58):
as soon as the other team has closer shot than
any of your other shots, bam cuts off scoring right there. Now,
isn't that how it goes in shuffle board too? Or
no um or maybe it's inbout you there. I know
there's that you mentioned the scoring being similar to one
of those games, and now I'm completely spacing on which
one it was, but that sounds familiar to ball. Okay,
so you kind of line up those shots, and the
(18:20):
moment somebody gets a superior shot to all those ones
that are laying on the field, than that is the
one that takes precedent, that is the one that takes
the cake. And I have a question for you, Max,
is it is it possible to knock other rocks out
of the way. Yes, it is, you can very much
do so. I mean there are certain rules like the
(18:40):
free guard zone, so like certain shots early on in
the end, you can't take those up because those are
set up to be like you know, stimulate like like
scoring and make the game more exciting and more strategic.
But let's just say no, as a shot in a
spot where you want it, you can take no shot
out and put your rock right there. Okay, So we've
and we've seen this happen with other other similar games
(19:02):
we've described. You also have pretty comprehensive list of rules
and roles which we can we can dive into maybe
along the way before you that can, Ben, can you
tell me what other hats your your clones were wearing.
I just have to know. I want to picture this. Sure. Yeah,
one is a astronaut helmet. One is a Jason Vorhees mask,
(19:25):
but it's put up, you know, uh so itinically qualifies
as a hat. Okay, so we've got we got were
four players, right, four players per team, which we're gonna
get get into with the roles in a second. So
we've got the lead, the second, the vice skip, and
the skip. I'm gonna say that baseball hat Ben is
the lead, Newsy hat Ben is the second, astronaut helmet
(19:46):
Ben is the vice skip, and the skip is Jason
Vorhees top of head hat wearing Ben. So these are
these are all important roles and they all do those
things as they're sort of title. But they also are
shooters too, Max correct, Yes, everyone shoots two stones. He
kind of going that way, and each person has like
a different objective with what they're trying to do. So
(20:08):
like the leads trying to set up and like you know,
build out for strategy, while at the second and vice
skip or more like, okay, we gotta either correct misshots
from previous people or you know, mess with the other
team strategy because you can't let the other team get ahead,
and the skip at the very ends, it's like, Okay,
I have to fine tune this so our strategy can
do is or bail out the team. So it's kind
(20:29):
of all that, and everyone does different things, like some
people sweep, some people call shots, some people sweep and
call shots at the vice skip. It's a lot. It's
like going on. Also, the I like how you noted
the second is in one curler's opinion the bag man
of the team is that curler you is it your opinion?
(20:50):
I mean, I'm not gonna say who this one curlier
that we're always getting an opinion from is, but you know,
it may or may not be me. I will not deny,
but I will not confirm. Bagman meaning you're like carrying
water for the whole team, or like you're you're the
guy that's sort of like cannon fodder or something. You
can always trust the bagman to do the job, to
(21:11):
do the job. I see, I see, I see, I see.
I think my understanding of what a bagman actually means
is always fluctuating over time. The skip, though, I like
because the idea it makes me think of like a skipper,
like like the captain of a ship, and you know,
this is a vaguely water adjacent sport. You are on
water just happens to be frozen and you're sailing kind
of a vessel, you know, in the stone. So and
(21:33):
I mean maybe you don't know, but do you think
that is the skip referring to the action of play
like skipping a rock or something like that, or is
a skip like the skipper reference like someone who's directing
and guiding, you know, a team. I would probably say
it's the latter. I think it probably comes from that.
That would make the most sense to me. Yeah, there's
a there are many other factors that play into this.
(21:56):
There are a lot of other rules like the clock,
the hogline, player substitutions, etcetera, including the free guard zone
that you had you had mentioned earlier, Max, But we've
given you the basics here, so now we're gonna dive
into the history. Despite the rumors that are everywhere on
Twitter in the internet. Uh, Max Williams, by his own admission,
(22:19):
did not event curling. It was according to the World
Curling Federation. It is, like we said, one of the
oldest extant team sports. You can see references to it
all the way back in like paintings from Flemish folks
such as Peter Briegel. In one of his paints in particular,
(22:39):
there's a frozen pond with people playing on it. Most
of them are ice skating, but if you look at
the towards the bottom of the painting, you'll see there
are people who have what are clearly curling rocks and
they're throwing them down the ice. And sometimes that's the
way we get historical contexts and paintings, little images of
things that were like enough in the parlance of a
(22:59):
period it that they were worthy to be incorporated into
a beautiful scene of you know, outdoorsy frolicking and whatnot.
We also have early written examples of curling from the
literary work of the Scottish writer John McQuinn. He wrote
a protocol book where he recorded a challenge between John Sclator,
(23:22):
who was a monk at an abbey, and Gavin Hamilton's,
who represented the abbot uh And not much as known
about the actual match how things, you know, turned out,
but it is known that Slator apparently through a rock
or a stone down a sheet device three times and
then asserted that he was ready that's that's the the
impression that we got, uh yeah, and it makes sense,
(23:44):
like if you're in a part of the world where
you have where water freezes, you know, seasonally, people start
to figure out ways of enjoying it, whether it be
like you know, attaching uh, steel blades to the bottles
of shoes like the Dutch, or like cutting holes in
the ice to to try catch fish. You know, you realize,
like skipping a stone down a creek, that you can
(24:04):
slide a stone on a frozen creek or a frozen
lake or a frozen pond. And then, you know, humans
like to make things more complicated and start to institute
rules and all of that stuff, and like the old
tradition of anything, you start getting variations and things that
start to get picked up, and when people start to
kind of adopt the ones they like the best, and
(24:24):
the winners kind of rise to the top in terms
of like the rules, and then before you know it,
you got yourself sport, right yeah. And this is a
bit of a mysterious sport because, like a lot of
old sports, there are controversies and contradicting claims about its genesis.
We don't know a ton about the early beginnings now,
(24:46):
but it's widely believed Scotland is the birthplace of the sport.
Scotland is definitely home to the first recognized curling clubs, right,
associations of curling enthusiasts. The two big ones are the
Kills Curling Club. They say they're the oldest and their
ponds or their club was established in seventeen sixteen, but
(25:07):
people have been playing there since the fifteen hundreds. And
then there's the kin Ross Curling Club who disagrees. They
were established in sixteen sixty eight and they say they're
one of the oldest, if not the oldest. So if
those two groups ever play matches together, I imagine that
rivalry is legendary. It is true though it's it's a
(25:30):
very old sport. It didn't actually have formal rules for
a long time for a couple of centuries, right, it
was like a house rules or this is how we
played in our pond. Yeah, I mean even today they're
like regional or just different kind of like variations of
like simple card games. And of course for a game
like curling that was very much founded based on conditions
(25:53):
in certain parts of the world, that makes absolute sense.
So in eighteen thirty eight we started to see a
bit more of a catification of the rules of curling
when we saw the Grand Caledonian Curling Club, Uh, that's
a mouthful, become kind of the authority on curling in
the same way you might have like the n C
(26:14):
Double A or whatever, you know, different divisions of of
basketball or football. You know, again when I don't even
know which one that is, because I'm not a sports guy,
but the g C c C or G Triple C is,
how I'm gonna say, is that thing for curling And
it was established in Edinburgh, Scotland in eighteen thirty eight.
The G Triple C really did later, I mean again,
(26:36):
early on. It certainly helped establish, like, you know, unified
sets of rules, but it really did become the kind
of end all, be all epicenter of the curling universe. Uh.
In eighteen forty two they put on a formal curling
demonstration for Queen Victoria and she was delighted and amused.
She was so amazed by the performance. The next year
(26:56):
she gave the club her permission to change the name
to the Royal Caledonian Curling Club instead of grant she
can get an upgrade to Royal and honestly, we probably
could do a whole episode on this club alone. They
literally have the title the mother Club of curling. That's
their historical kind of honorific from the World Curling Federation,
which is the thing now that sort of maybe took
(27:18):
their place a bit, But for those who are curious,
you can check into their activities to this day on
their website Royal Caledonian Curling Club dot org dot org. Yeah,
and now as people from Scotland begin to move to
other parts of the world where there's still cold weather,
(27:38):
we see curling become a global phenomenon. We're looking particularly
at Scandinavian countries, the US, even parts of New Zealand,
but no country caught curling fever with quite the same
ardor as Canada. They are believed currently to have over
one thousand separate curling clubs, and by way of contrast
(28:02):
their neighbors to the south, the US has about a
hundred and eighty five, and that number marks a huge
increase over time. We said earlier the Olympics brought curling
to even more of a international stage in when they
(28:23):
became an official sport there, but it wasn't the first
time the Olympics actually featured curling. In nineteen twenty four,
there was a kind of exhibition men's curling competition, just
for anybody who likes to hold a regional Olympic grudge.
Great Britain got the gold, Sweden got silver, and France
(28:47):
got the bronze. These medals would later be awarded in
two thousand and six. It took him a second. Just
say it took him a second. And you know, ridiculous
history where the last people to talk about out doing
things a little late. We celebrate birthdays about four months later.
We'll get to a Christmas episode sometime in June. We
(29:07):
get it. But I wanted to ask Max, do you
know why there was this? Did Was this like a
retroactive reward or awards ceremony? Yeah? I think it was.
If I remember when I was reading it on the
World Curling Federations website, it was a kind of exhibition
sport deemed at the time it was like we were
just showing this off, but then later on they deemed
(29:28):
it was actually a full sport. And at that Olympics,
and I don't think demonstration or exhibitions formally get medals
usually at least at that time, they didn't, so they
were recognized retroactively as legit in the Olympics at that time.
And there are all sorts of sports in the Olympics
that aren't maybe common spectator sports outside of that, right,
(29:52):
Like there's you're rarely going to see a local pole
vaulting club do a bunch of you know, like have
big to do. But the opposite is true as well.
There are a lot of very popular sports that aren't
really part of the Olympics. And not being in the
Olympics doesn't necessarily stop a sports popularity, right. We know
(30:13):
that In nineteen fifty nine, Scotland and Canada formed what
they called the Scotch Cup. Uh it's tasty, you guys,
fans of Scotch eggs. I yeah, it's a good Yeah,
it's not to like you know, you know, I used
to be weirded out by hard boiled eggs when I
was younger. Um, I think it's just that happens as
(30:34):
you get older. You just start to like heard hard
boiled eggs and what's not to like with wrapping it
and sausage and deep frying louise, I mean frying things
fixes them, that's true. And most situated scotch cup is
just a cup of scotch though. That's mine, okay, right on,
I like my Scotch in this in this old plastic
cup from the Olympics. I still have a cup from
(30:55):
the Olympics. My parents just paid so much for it.
I felt like we couldn't throw it away. Does have
is He on it? Is that his name? The weird
little does? Yeah? Yeah it does that little watcherman call
it of an idea? Yes, yeah for anyone that doesn't
isn't in the know? Atlanta host of the Olympics that year,
and then we like, I don't know, they probably paid
(31:15):
somebody gazillion dollars to design this stupid little blue cartoon
character named is He that was like this little yeah,
look at me, he can do spirit kind of little
pixie or something and just uh, in one defense, they
told the designer they wanted it to be something that
no one would know what it is, that was purposeful
(31:37):
and incorporating. Yeah. I don't think they designed or knows,
but but you know, his mascots go, this guy was
not the worst mascot anyhow. He probably didn't play curling
because those were not Winter Olympics. Still, it's a tough
job to make a mascot, and it's a tough job
to play any sort of sport. We do want to
(31:58):
note that there are several different I guess you would
say types of curling, right specialization. There's team curling that
has all male teams, all female identified teams juniors, there's
a wheelchair curling, and then there are what are called
mixed doubles. So this is definitely a sport that a
(32:21):
lot of people can get into and expect to do
reasonably well, right, which I would say also makes it
different from something like professional basketball or professional football. It
just seems like, I mean, it doesn't require you know,
feats of strength exactly. It's more feats of restraint, right,
It's like more about knowing exactly how much oomph to
(32:42):
give the thing when you're pushing it. And then I mean,
obviously it takes a little energy to scrub that ice
as you go. But Max, what do you think is
this a more accessible sport than say bob sledding or
you know, downhill slalom ng Oh, yes, most definitely. I
mean all you need for the sport is it's kind
of like a will a while hunt and just just
the experiment within. People are always like, what type a
(33:03):
shoeshout I wear? Like, don't need special shoes, It's like,
no normal shoes? Yeah, you got like any club you like?
Do you need a broom? Do you need the funniest ones?
I get asked like do I need to bring my
own stones? It's like eight of them for a team,
the forty two pounds a piece. Now you don't bring
your own stones? Nice? Yeah, Also no special shoes. Take
that bowling. That would be the other That would be
(33:25):
another sport where people would say you don't have to
be a certain body type to succeed. But we can't
conclude this episode without answering some of the big big questions.
These are questions I asked you very early on Max
when I found out about your fascination. Why is the
sport called curling? Other than describing the name, we haven't
(33:46):
explained this at all. So the reason why it's called
curling is because when you throw the stone, you either
turn the handle to the left or to the right
or clockwise counter clockwise, however you wish to prefer that,
and that causes the stone to curl that direction, so
it's not like you're just throwing stones straight. So let's
say there's a guard stone in the front of that
in front of the house, blocking stones behind it. You
(34:07):
can draw behind you can curl behind it that you
your stone behind that or I mean, it's very similar
in this English, right, putting English on a pool call
or putting spin on you know, any other kind of ball.
And that's and I was actually about a reference pool.
It's very someone that asked towards about angles, how can
I bounce these angles and position my stones? I mean,
what's really funny about the curling is it actually doesn't
(34:30):
make any sense because if you think about physics, if
it curls, if you're trying to curl it to the right,
it would go to the left. So curling stones actually
go the opposite direction of what they should. And no
one actually knows the answer to this because they're imbued
with wizard magic probably, I mean, and here's the funny things.
Do you ask a curl or we're like, oh, why
why does it do things? Like, I don't know. As
long as it curls the way I wanted to go,
(34:51):
then that's fine. Yeah, ok, Folk and also it's cool
that if you try to throw a stone straight with
no no spin on it, no curl, no english, then
it won't go straight. It'll just sort of go where
the ice wants, which is nuts because there is a
(35:13):
lot of science to this. And that gets us to
our next big question, what's the deal with the sweeping?
I feel like I'm in sixty minutes? What's the deal
was sweeping and curling? So the reason why you sweep
is curling ice is different from like hockey ice or
like figure skating ice, because that's just like flat, smooth,
perfect ice. You try to throw a curling stone on that,
(35:33):
it would go like three ft and stop and we'll
go a little further than that, but it wouldn't go well.
So what you do in curling is you like take
these little little device it looks like a ghost Buster
like backpack, and you put it on your back and
you spray this little like pebbles of ice on the sheet.
So it makes very little dust and that's what the
curling rocks slides on. And so the reason why you
(35:54):
sweep is if you sweep it, you're melting those little pebbles,
causing them to be even less friction for your stone
to go over, so it goes faster. And it was
going faster as less time to curl to go straight.
Or also, so let's say you have to get around
a guard. You sweep it, sweep it, sweep it, sweep it.
You get past the guard, you take off and just
slowly curls behind it. Interesting, Okay, so those folks who
(36:16):
are sweeping are doing something. It's not performance art. They're
not like making some commentary on the Industrial Revolution. I
always assumed they were doing something to help guide the
path of it or to like even like by by
by sweeping in a certain direction at a certain angle,
they could change the direction of the stone. Is that
(36:37):
accurate or no? So they claim they can do that,
but it's been a common joke that directional sweeping it
doesn't actually work. I mean you heard it. I heard
a lot on the past Olympics like, oh, they're sweeping
on that side for the directional and I think maybe
at an Olympic level with semi professional curlers, there's no
such thing really as a professional curler, and like, but
(36:58):
like professionally maintained ice maybe do it. But like you
go to a local curling club. There's no way in
hell you're gonna be able to direct it with your
sweeping Okay, unless you're somebody who like has a practice
ice sweeping drink at your house. Right, Okay, alright, goals,
let's make it happen. When we wrap this episode up,
(37:20):
maybe we take this history into the future and maybe
there are some of our fellow ridiculous historians who are asking, well,
this sounds cool. How can I start to become a curler,
A curlsman, a curl folk, myself, curler, curler? Okay, curls folk,
I like, but I respect your expertise here, Max. So these,
(37:42):
uh you mentioned there are these clubs that people can join.
How do you how do you get involved? What's going on? Well,
I mean, so like people think like, oh, there's probably
no curling clubs. There's a hundred and eighty five of them.
I believe that's what USA Curling says. Kros the United States,
and obviously like Minnesota, Michigan, New York, may and they
(38:04):
got a lot of them. But that does not mean
that like here on at the warmer states are excluded.
So there's three clubs in Tennessee. There's actually four in Florida,
and there's seven in California, including three in Los Angeles.
There's a lot of them. Wow. And you know, without
without putting you two on the spot, rumor has it,
there's even a curling club here in our fair metropolis
(38:26):
of Atlanta, Georgia. Yes, there is. There is the Atlanta
Curling Club located here in our fair metropolis, as you
have said, and they curl at the Atlanta Ice Forum.
And but I'll let you take the honors here. You
can read this Nextlanta have in the brief. It may
or may not have been co founded by our lovely superproducer,
(38:46):
the one, the amazing, the self described ungodly Maxwell James
William the first. I think we need a sound right now.
(39:07):
You just just just full name Max. I love that
is he in troubles. That's that's a quote for him. Also,
I like adding the first there that's classy first of
his name Maxwell. I'm gonna start using that. But yeah,
and also if you're ever interested, you just go to
the USA Curling and they have a fine club. Tool Kid,
We'll just show you the closest one. If you're near
(39:28):
any big metropolitan area, there's probably curling club in area,
and you too can become a part of the spirit
of curling, which is a very important concept unique to
the support. I mean, it's not unique to this sport.
It's called the spirit of curling. It's unique, but it embodies,
you know, the idea of respect to one another, of
(39:48):
people that are playing the sport, but also to the
sport itself. It's about skill and tradition, about executing shots well,
about taking joy in others and in their success. So
I really really is kind of I like the fact
that you're playing against other teams, but not like head
to head, like you know, clashing. You're just sort of
(40:08):
doing your own thing and then it all comes out
in the wash in terms of the scoring. Uh. This
is all from the World Curling Federation, by the way
that they describe the spirit of curling. Thus, like true
curler never attempts to distract opponents, nor to prevent them
from playing their best. It would prefer to lose rather
than to win unfairly. Curlers never knowingly break a rule
(40:31):
of the game, nor disrespect any of its traditions. Should
they become aware that this has been done inadvertently, they
would be the first to devolve the breach, which is
really you know, wholesome. And you can see this in
curling games where the opposing team will congratulate their rivals
on a really well done move, the every everybody on
(40:53):
the everybody on the ice will have that oh snap,
cool moments, which doesn't happen all the time and other sports.
So that's one of the reasons I think that we are,
at least I am a newly converted fan of curling.
And we hope that you enjoyed today's episode. Folks. This
may this may have been a little longer than usual,
(41:15):
but uh, there's a lot of love went into this
when a lot of and a lot of research too.
So for that we have to start by thinking the
super producer, the man, the myth, the legend, lover of sports,
lover of trains, curling and star trek, Mr Max Williams.
It has been an honor, Yes, it's been an honor
as well. It's been a lot of fun. Uh. You know,
any time I get a chance to talk about curling,
(41:36):
I like to take advantage of that. I know you do, buddy,
and now I at least am armed with the knowledge
to be able to properly engage with you on this um,
on this topic. So so next time you won't go
to sleep while the US is playing in a gold
medal match. What I'm sorry? Yes, true story, one story
I want to leave us with before we finally end this.
(41:56):
Back in twenty the United States one, they're only gold
medal and curling. It's when the John's Schuster led team
upset the favorite Sweden for the golden medal. This was
during the infamous hot tub trip. Then this is the
cabin trip, Mr Noel Brown. This is a trip he
drake that whiskey that he apologized for on Tuesday's episode.
(42:19):
He was there, the opportunity was there, but he opted
for sleep. Granted it was in Korea at the time,
and it was very, very very early in the morning
when I was watching this, but it was magical night,
magical night. Indeed, So ashamed, uh, not really ashamed at all.
I do not recall any of this, Max, but I
I believe your recollection, at least when curling is involved.
(42:41):
And I do apologize for drinking that fine bottle of whiskey,
but it was good and probably contributed to my sleepiness.
I'm not gonna lie I end up during the rest
of it while during the match myself, it must have
been an awesome brunch moments a few hours later. With this,
we also of course want to thank our composer, Mr
Alex Williams. Check out his go with his brother Max
ephemeral When you get a chance, Thanks to Eve's Jeff Coat,
(43:04):
thanks to Christopher Hasciotis, and thanks to Jonathan Strickland. I
think this. I think participating in curling could probably do
a lot for that guy. Emotionally. I know he's really angry.
He's just so angry. We'll see you next time, folks.
(43:25):
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Let's give an extra special
couple of hands to our one and only super producer,
Mr Max Williams, who hold the phone also ran research
on today's episode running Point. Thanks for wearing a couple
(00:51):
of different hats today, Max, did you hear my one
handed clap? Max? I did, and I saw it. I
very much appreciate it. I know no one else can
see it, but I saw it, and I appairly appreciate.
What does running interference mean? Is that a good thing
or a bad thing? Running interference is a good thing
if it's someone on your team. If it's someone on
the other team, then they're they're interfering with you, trying
(01:14):
to get I'm wondering. I don't know. We'll get into
its day. But it's just like curling seems to be
largely like it's like the team versus the ice and
the stones. There's not really much interference running, is there. Well,
we're about to find out. They called me Ben, You're no.
Let's let me tell you one thing about Max Williams.
(01:36):
I was saying this off air about the guy earlier.
He loves four things. I think we did the list right, Uh, model, trains, curling, sports,
and star trek. Right, that was the list we came
up with. These are the only things that Max legs,
the only things. Honestly, the only thing is a pretty
(01:57):
big VENN diagram though the piece of the it's like,
you know, I really like that you guys have curling
and sports separate and not a sport. Currently you're telling me,
are you serious? Well, no, you know, after today's episode,
I think you might have a little bit of a
different opinion about that. Let's sets. But it wasn't adopted
(02:19):
in the Olympics until nineteen, which I was not aware of.
It's it's a relatively recent edition and has picked up
a lot of steam, I think largely because it's so
incomprehensible to the casual observer. Yeah, it's kind of like
it's I would put curling there with cricket. It's one
of those It's one of those sports that you can
watch and not understand unless you are aware of the rules.
(02:43):
Otherwise a lot of the movements and strategies may not
make a ton of sense. So with being a curling
new beat myself. We're grateful for the chance to learn
here and dive into some of the ridiculous history. They
said it surre hounding this sport, and Max you had
opened up with a great point about the Winter Olympics,
(03:05):
where he said, yes, they have some pretty ridiculous sports,
including stuff in the past like ski during which is
you describe it as water skiing on snow with a
horse instead of a boat. And then uh, you got
a couple of others here as well. Give it to Max.
These are these are your fines. I was not aware
(03:27):
of a single one of these, except maybe the skiing
one with the gun, but I think I may have
just seen that in the James Bond movie and sort
of like, uh, corelated those two things into one. But
I don't think they're related. I mean, I gotta, I
gotta mid like when it came through scioraging and bandy.
I had never heard of these either. But there's like banding,
which is like weird. It's described as a weird hybrid
(03:49):
of hockey and soccer on ice, so it's like it's
not it's like field hockey on eyes. That's what I
heard people say which it brings up the questions like
when field hockey on ice just bet ice hockey, but
I don't know that's what it was now. But the
weird one I found it was ski ballet. It's like
ballet while you're on skis, like you're like putting your
pole in the ground doing flips and stuff. I don't know,
(04:10):
it's really weird. Is it synchronized like swimming or is
it more a lone wolf thing. I think it's the
lone wolf thing. I think it lasted to the nineties.
I think it was in the Olympics in the nineties,
but it's not around anymore. But you know, we still
have biathlete and with personal favorite of mine, where you're
literally skiing across the country and then you stopped to
just shoot things like what like targets or squirrels or like,
(04:32):
you know, snow I mean, I think snow men would
be cool, but you know, I said, I said snow
birds now, but snow men would probably be less gory.
But yeah, I like that idea, a little snow men
kind of posing as like Nazi or something like that.
That's where again I'm James bonding, and again I'm trying
to bonding in again. We also did a pretty great
episode about uh skiing attacks. Remember that heist. Yeah, so
(04:56):
I think that's where our minds are going. I'm cornslating
several things right now. Oh that's I mean, that's great.
That's that's the that's the result of our beautiful minds
at play a long time ridiculous historians. You've probably heard
ever since Max joined us to class up the show
occasional references to his his love of and fascination with curling.
(05:21):
To give you the long and short of this, there
are two teams in every game. Each team has four players.
They take turns throwing rocks down a long, thin sheet
of ice, and then other people on their teams take
these broom ish tools and they start sweeping the ice. Matt,
(05:42):
you also note there is a lot of yelling in curling,
and you've been on record saying sometimes you think it
it doesn't get the respect it deserves. So today we're
going to correct that. But I think maybe Noll, first
we gotta talk about some of the some of the rules.
I had no idea how this stuff worked until honestly,
(06:03):
until I started hanging out with Max, totally no I'
mean either um, and again, because it's one of these
things where you know baseball, you can kind of get
it watching it for a little while with a little
bit of background knowledge. Football maybe a little less. So
I still don't understand quite how football wars. What is
it down? I don't even know. Somebody rights and let
(06:23):
me know. But curling, it's it's this very interesting, almost
ritualistic activity and it is a little hard to kind
of suss what is going on. So we're gonna do
you all a solid and give you uh curling one
oh one straight from the NBC Olympics website actually, as
as the source Max found for this, and they should
know because it's one of the most popular Winter Olympic sports.
(06:48):
Um in the game. Yeah, yeah, so everybody throws two
stones any game there. There aren't any people who only sweep.
There aren't any any people who only throw stones. The
stones are pretty heavy too. Don't think about hockey puck.
These bad boys are like forty two pounds. They're pure granite.
(07:09):
Always thought the stones were a little more bluesy than heavy.
Ben never mind. Yeah, it's a music joke. Yeah, there's
a music joke. Yes, thank you. The the these teams.
Like we said, they take turns throwing these stones down
this sheet of ice, which is about a d fifty
(07:30):
ft or traditionally and then what they're what they're trying
to do is like it's almost like that game where
you toss a coin at a wall or a baseboard
and try to get closest to the wall. Or maybe
it's almost like cornhole. If if you guys remember that
they're trying to get the stones inside the circular rings
that are called the house, the house, the house of
(07:53):
the sliding rings. They call that. I would be the
name of the kung Fu movie or the folk song
about curling. You know, it reminds me of you're right
about the corn corn hoole um, which is a name
with the so silly that I hate to even say
it out loud. It is fun, though, it's fun, you know,
backyard game UM can fold up into a nice little
portable suitcase situation with all your bags and your little
hole UM. But I think of Max, I want to
(08:16):
check you on this um game called the tonk also
known as bocci ball, where it's about it's about proximity
to a peg. So is there's a there's like a
rash of these backyard kind of proximity games or like
horseshoes where you can knock somebody else's thing and the
closest with the slideyness of it all. I was so
ship curling with shuffleboard. Yes, you know, you actually got
(08:38):
like the examples we give to people when they're asking,
it's like scoring wise, it's botch ball, um like play style,
like what it looks like, it's shovel board. But actually, ben,
I really like yours about cornhole, because that's that's really good.
The only difference is cornhole is scored differently. Botch Ball
score wise is the closest, all right, and we know
that there are When it comes to curling, there are
(09:00):
a couple of very key beginning rules. First rule, don't
talk about curling kidding. The first rule is first rule.
The longest time nobody did that was a rule that
was not a problem until came around and changed the game.
We're about to get where we may be in danger
from big curling folks. This might be the stuff they
(09:20):
don't want you to know. Different show. The first rule
is the rings mark how close your stone is to
that sweet spot in the middle. They don't mark how
much your shot is worth. So every stone inside that
ring is worth one point. And this means that if
a stone is barely touching the furthest circle, it is
(09:43):
still worth the same amount of points as a stone
directly in the middle, directly on the button. Give me
just say it to you. You just said it been
like in the way people would say it as a phrase,
but on the button. You ever heard someone say that
for like getting something just right? Max, that's a curling reference,
or is or the others are just kind of like
parallel parallel. I have no idea, so I'm gonna stay
(10:04):
with the curling reference, and everything comes from curling. Everything, Max, ever,
is a curling reference that we just didn't get for
like years, which is reframings of conversations. So each game,
you know, I'm talking about downs. I know what a
down is, guys, I'm just playing up my sports idiocy.
(10:24):
But an end is what it's called in curling. It's
sort of like an inning in baseball. Or I guess, well,
I guess in football there's a quarter and then the
quarter is divided into downs. Is that right? Downs are
like the thing first down, second down, third down, and
that's the end of the quarter. Is am I right
about that? Max? Kind of it's yeah, it's like a down. Yeah,
(10:46):
thank you. It makes no sense and it does have
by the way, a dubious fact about American football, it
has the worst commercial to play ratios of any sport
uh in history by a wide margin. But a down
is like when a team as possession of a ball.
(11:08):
So if team Max Max just picking animal, it doesn't
matter podcasts. Okay, So if the Maximilian Bobcats are playing
the Casey La Bushes and the Bobcats have the ball
and they're trying to they're trying to get to the
end zone and make a score, then they can they
It's kind of like they get four chances to get
(11:31):
it across the field if they like, if they fumble
or they like get you know, fifteen yards forward before
they get tackled, then that's like first down and right,
But aren't aren't the aren't there? Isn't the game delineated
into a series? I mean, if that's their chances, then
it goes to the other side and then they get
a number of chances and then that ends a portion
(11:51):
of the game. Or are they unrelated? So it's time based.
Football is comic conglomeration of multiple like sports is rules
and stuff. It's a later sports, so it's got a
lot like you can see, like I got a lot
of soccer, and then like other sports who have evolved
from soccer, like hockey and stuff like that. But it's
it's all a metaphor for war anyways. It's a metaphor
(12:12):
for napoleotic warfare. And I think maybe that's why football
is so popular. But alstilly Whiten doesn't do it for me.
And the more I read about curling, Max, and the
more I mean, I give you a little guff about
it out of love, but it just seems like a
pretty chill, peaceful kind of sport, like I mean, because
you're you're helping each other out. It's team base. You're
not really fighting each other, You're just fighting against the
(12:32):
the ice, you know, and gravity. It seems meditative, which
I think is what I like about it. So once
all these shots have been thrown, you get to the
scoring portion. You calculate scores by looking at the closest
stones to the button. Whichever team has the closest shot
to the center gets one point, and if that team
(12:54):
has the second closest shot, they get two points, and
if they have the third closest they get three, and
on and on. But if the opposing team has a
shot closer, then that's where scoring stops. So like, if
Team Ghostbusters got the closest thing, they would get a point.
(13:14):
But then if their opponent, Team Police Academy had the
second closest, they would just get one point. We were
talking off air, some of our fellow ridiculous historians maybe saying, guys,
what's what's the history here? You're telling us about the
rules of curling, and I think you're doing a great job,
(13:37):
hopefully that's what you're saying to us, But what what
about the history? I suggest we take just a second
for a moment with Max. Here. Max, let's do some
personal ridiculous history. How did you get involved in this
whole curling thing to begin with? Did you invent curling? No,
curling very much predates me, you and even nol and
(13:59):
even Matt like you know, way before us. But um so,
I am like from Atlanta, this is my home, but
I was actually born in Detroit. I moved here when
I was six. And here's the thing about living in
Detroit at least in the nineties, is you got Canadian
public television? What do you think Canadian public television showed
all the time curling and kids in the Hall reruns?
Probably in the hall, Yeah, in the hall. Yeah, we
(14:23):
got the entire box set, like a room over from here.
But um, I remember like watching curling as a kid
and being like, oh, it's so cool. Then I moved
down to Atlanta and then there was nothing, like no
one had even heard of it. I mean, granted, there's
not really nice sports down Atlanta for people who don't know,
Atlanta is really hot, and so I mean I've alway's
just been something, especially because of the Olympics. And then
(14:43):
it's like, you know, got more popular, and like the
two thousands and tens got more popular, and then I
was just like, yeah, let's get into the sport. Why
don't we try to figure out how to play this sport?
All right? Max, Now that we have a little bit
of your personal curling history, which I don't know, it's
just you guys. You your family, man, I'll tell you
you and your other Alex who composed this banging bob uh,
your parents, You're all like very interesting people who have
(15:06):
very interesting and sort of off the beaten path hobbies
and and interests. I mean, your brother has a whole
podcast about that called Ephemeral that you work on. It's
just about like just odd pieces of esoterica throughout culture
and history and things that would otherwise kind of go unnoticed.
You and your family are people that notice that kind
of stuff, and I think it's really cool And this
(15:27):
is a great example. It would take a special person
to see such a strange and and uh esoteric kind
of sport that on the onset doesn't seem particularly inviting
and be like, no, I'm gonna find a way to
make this inviting. This is this speaks to me in
some way. Um, so kudos for that. But you wrote
up this amazing we're trying to trying to invite people
(15:48):
into the world of curling by starting off with getting
your head around some of the rules, and Max, you
wrote up this amazing scenario. Uh the scenario to to
to quick terrify it about like how how a round
of play would go? Can you walk us through that
and we'll kind of well, we'll help pull chime in
as needed. But you've got some very fun little hypothetical
(16:08):
uh team team names that I think will help everyone
really get get an understanding of how this goes down.
All right, So here I'm gonna set it up real quick.
So let's to say we have two teams. We have
a Team Noll and we have a Team Bend. So
Team Noll there's four people. Remember on these teams, there's
just four slightly different versions of Noels. So we got
Nerdy Doll, we got a biker Knoll, we got an
(16:30):
invisible Knoll, and we have a wizard Knoll. And now
we look over a Team Ben. It's just four identical Bends.
Like these are completely the same, all same, except maybe
very different hats or something like that. You know, Yeah,
each of Ben's hat incarnations Ben Ben sort of like
a multi hat kind of dude anyway, so it could
be each one of his like hat forms. Right, there's
(16:51):
the there's yeah, Ben, please the other one. You got
a really nice um kind of newsy hat you wear
some times that I really like. Sure, yes, and let's
go for it. So there's uh so okay, so these
these guys are head to head. They've played there first round,
right or excuse me, first end first hand? Yes, and
(17:14):
so after the first end, Team Noel has like the
first and the second closest shot to the center. So
at the end of this we totaled it up and boom,
two points for Team Noel. But now we're gonna go
to the second end. Now Here, at the end of
the second end, Team Ben has the closest shot, the
third closest shot, the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and
ninth closest shot. But Team no after a magical shot
(17:37):
by Wizard Dole. We don't know how he did it,
but it was just I just made a sound effect
and just said pew, and everything just kind of fell
into place right, and so and how he lies the
second closest shot. So that's not eight points between Ben,
that is just one point because it is the order
or the shot rock. Whoever has the closest shot Rock
gets the point. Whoever a second gets two points. But
(17:58):
as soon as the other team has closer shot than
any of your other shots, bam cuts off scoring right there. Now,
isn't that how it goes in shuffle board too? Or
no um or maybe it's inbout you there. I know
there's that you mentioned the scoring being similar to one
of those games, and now I'm completely spacing on which
one it was, but that sounds familiar to ball. Okay,
so you kind of line up those shots, and the
(18:20):
moment somebody gets a superior shot to all those ones
that are laying on the field, than that is the
one that takes precedent, that is the one that takes
the cake. And I have a question for you, Max,
is it is it possible to knock other rocks out
of the way. Yes, it is, you can very much
do so. I mean there are certain rules like the
(18:40):
free guard zone, so like certain shots early on in
the end, you can't take those up because those are
set up to be like you know, stimulate like like
scoring and make the game more exciting and more strategic.
But let's just say no, as a shot in a
spot where you want it, you can take no shot
out and put your rock right there. Okay, So we've
and we've seen this happen with other other similar games
(19:02):
we've described. You also have pretty comprehensive list of rules
and roles which we can we can dive into maybe
along the way before you that can, Ben, can you
tell me what other hats your your clones were wearing.
I just have to know. I want to picture this. Sure. Yeah,
one is a astronaut helmet. One is a Jason Vorhees mask,
(19:25):
but it's put up, you know, uh so itinically qualifies
as a hat. Okay, so we've got we got were
four players, right, four players per team, which we're gonna
get get into with the roles in a second. So
we've got the lead, the second, the vice skip, and
the skip. I'm gonna say that baseball hat Ben is
the lead, Newsy hat Ben is the second, astronaut helmet
(19:46):
Ben is the vice skip, and the skip is Jason
Vorhees top of head hat wearing Ben. So these are
these are all important roles and they all do those
things as they're sort of title. But they also are
shooters too, Max correct, Yes, everyone shoots two stones. He
kind of going that way, and each person has like
a different objective with what they're trying to do. So
(20:08):
like the leads trying to set up and like you know,
build out for strategy, while at the second and vice
skip or more like, okay, we gotta either correct misshots
from previous people or you know, mess with the other
team strategy because you can't let the other team get ahead,
and the skip at the very ends, it's like, Okay,
I have to fine tune this so our strategy can
do is or bail out the team. So it's kind
(20:29):
of all that, and everyone does different things, like some
people sweep, some people call shots, some people sweep and
call shots at the vice skip. It's a lot. It's
like going on. Also, the I like how you noted
the second is in one curler's opinion the bag man
of the team is that curler you is it your opinion?
(20:50):
I mean, I'm not gonna say who this one curlier
that we're always getting an opinion from is, but you know,
it may or may not be me. I will not deny,
but I will not confirm. Bagman meaning you're like carrying
water for the whole team, or like you're you're the
guy that's sort of like cannon fodder or something. You
can always trust the bagman to do the job, to
(21:11):
do the job. I see, I see, I see, I see.
I think my understanding of what a bagman actually means
is always fluctuating over time. The skip, though, I like
because the idea it makes me think of like a skipper,
like like the captain of a ship, and you know,
this is a vaguely water adjacent sport. You are on
water just happens to be frozen and you're sailing kind
of a vessel, you know, in the stone. So and
(21:33):
I mean maybe you don't know, but do you think
that is the skip referring to the action of play
like skipping a rock or something like that, or is
a skip like the skipper reference like someone who's directing
and guiding, you know, a team. I would probably say
it's the latter. I think it probably comes from that.
That would make the most sense to me. Yeah, there's
a there are many other factors that play into this.
(21:56):
There are a lot of other rules like the clock,
the hogline, player substitutions, etcetera, including the free guard zone
that you had you had mentioned earlier, Max, But we've
given you the basics here, so now we're gonna dive
into the history. Despite the rumors that are everywhere on
Twitter in the internet. Uh, Max Williams, by his own admission,
(22:19):
did not event curling. It was according to the World
Curling Federation. It is, like we said, one of the
oldest extant team sports. You can see references to it
all the way back in like paintings from Flemish folks
such as Peter Briegel. In one of his paints in particular,
(22:39):
there's a frozen pond with people playing on it. Most
of them are ice skating, but if you look at
the towards the bottom of the painting, you'll see there
are people who have what are clearly curling rocks and
they're throwing them down the ice. And sometimes that's the
way we get historical contexts and paintings, little images of
things that were like enough in the parlance of a
(22:59):
period it that they were worthy to be incorporated into
a beautiful scene of you know, outdoorsy frolicking and whatnot.
We also have early written examples of curling from the
literary work of the Scottish writer John McQuinn. He wrote
a protocol book where he recorded a challenge between John Sclator,
(23:22):
who was a monk at an abbey, and Gavin Hamilton's,
who represented the abbot uh And not much as known
about the actual match how things, you know, turned out,
but it is known that Slator apparently through a rock
or a stone down a sheet device three times and
then asserted that he was ready that's that's the the
impression that we got, uh yeah, and it makes sense,
(23:44):
like if you're in a part of the world where
you have where water freezes, you know, seasonally, people start
to figure out ways of enjoying it, whether it be
like you know, attaching uh, steel blades to the bottles
of shoes like the Dutch, or like cutting holes in
the ice to to try catch fish. You know, you realize,
like skipping a stone down a creek, that you can
(24:04):
slide a stone on a frozen creek or a frozen
lake or a frozen pond. And then, you know, humans
like to make things more complicated and start to institute
rules and all of that stuff, and like the old
tradition of anything, you start getting variations and things that
start to get picked up, and when people start to
kind of adopt the ones they like the best, and
(24:24):
the winners kind of rise to the top in terms
of like the rules, and then before you know it,
you got yourself sport, right yeah. And this is a
bit of a mysterious sport because, like a lot of
old sports, there are controversies and contradicting claims about its genesis.
We don't know a ton about the early beginnings now,
(24:46):
but it's widely believed Scotland is the birthplace of the sport.
Scotland is definitely home to the first recognized curling clubs, right,
associations of curling enthusiasts. The two big ones are the
Kills Curling Club. They say they're the oldest and their
ponds or their club was established in seventeen sixteen, but
(25:07):
people have been playing there since the fifteen hundreds. And
then there's the kin Ross Curling Club who disagrees. They
were established in sixteen sixty eight and they say they're
one of the oldest, if not the oldest. So if
those two groups ever play matches together, I imagine that
rivalry is legendary. It is true though it's it's a
(25:30):
very old sport. It didn't actually have formal rules for
a long time for a couple of centuries, right, it
was like a house rules or this is how we
played in our pond. Yeah, I mean even today they're
like regional or just different kind of like variations of
like simple card games. And of course for a game
like curling that was very much founded based on conditions
(25:53):
in certain parts of the world, that makes absolute sense.
So in eighteen thirty eight we started to see a
bit more of a catification of the rules of curling
when we saw the Grand Caledonian Curling Club, Uh, that's
a mouthful, become kind of the authority on curling in
the same way you might have like the n C
(26:14):
Double A or whatever, you know, different divisions of of
basketball or football. You know, again when I don't even
know which one that is, because I'm not a sports guy,
but the g C c C or G Triple C is,
how I'm gonna say, is that thing for curling And
it was established in Edinburgh, Scotland in eighteen thirty eight.
The G Triple C really did later, I mean again,
(26:36):
early on. It certainly helped establish, like, you know, unified
sets of rules, but it really did become the kind
of end all, be all epicenter of the curling universe. Uh.
In eighteen forty two they put on a formal curling
demonstration for Queen Victoria and she was delighted and amused.
She was so amazed by the performance. The next year
(26:56):
she gave the club her permission to change the name
to the Royal Caledonian Curling Club instead of grant she
can get an upgrade to Royal and honestly, we probably
could do a whole episode on this club alone. They
literally have the title the mother Club of curling. That's
their historical kind of honorific from the World Curling Federation,
which is the thing now that sort of maybe took
(27:18):
their place a bit, But for those who are curious,
you can check into their activities to this day on
their website Royal Caledonian Curling Club dot org dot org. Yeah,
and now as people from Scotland begin to move to
other parts of the world where there's still cold weather,
(27:38):
we see curling become a global phenomenon. We're looking particularly
at Scandinavian countries, the US, even parts of New Zealand,
but no country caught curling fever with quite the same
ardor as Canada. They are believed currently to have over
one thousand separate curling clubs, and by way of contrast
(28:02):
their neighbors to the south, the US has about a
hundred and eighty five, and that number marks a huge
increase over time. We said earlier the Olympics brought curling
to even more of a international stage in when they
(28:23):
became an official sport there, but it wasn't the first
time the Olympics actually featured curling. In nineteen twenty four,
there was a kind of exhibition men's curling competition, just
for anybody who likes to hold a regional Olympic grudge.
Great Britain got the gold, Sweden got silver, and France
(28:47):
got the bronze. These medals would later be awarded in
two thousand and six. It took him a second. Just
say it took him a second. And you know, ridiculous
history where the last people to talk about out doing
things a little late. We celebrate birthdays about four months later.
We'll get to a Christmas episode sometime in June. We
(29:07):
get it. But I wanted to ask Max, do you
know why there was this? Did Was this like a
retroactive reward or awards ceremony? Yeah? I think it was.
If I remember when I was reading it on the
World Curling Federations website, it was a kind of exhibition
sport deemed at the time it was like we were
just showing this off, but then later on they deemed
(29:28):
it was actually a full sport. And at that Olympics,
and I don't think demonstration or exhibitions formally get medals
usually at least at that time, they didn't, so they
were recognized retroactively as legit in the Olympics at that time.
And there are all sorts of sports in the Olympics
that aren't maybe common spectator sports outside of that, right,
(29:52):
Like there's you're rarely going to see a local pole
vaulting club do a bunch of you know, like have
big to do. But the opposite is true as well.
There are a lot of very popular sports that aren't
really part of the Olympics. And not being in the
Olympics doesn't necessarily stop a sports popularity, right. We know
(30:13):
that In nineteen fifty nine, Scotland and Canada formed what
they called the Scotch Cup. Uh it's tasty, you guys,
fans of Scotch eggs. I yeah, it's a good Yeah,
it's not to like you know, you know, I used
to be weirded out by hard boiled eggs when I
was younger. Um, I think it's just that happens as
(30:34):
you get older. You just start to like heard hard
boiled eggs and what's not to like with wrapping it
and sausage and deep frying louise, I mean frying things
fixes them, that's true. And most situated scotch cup is
just a cup of scotch though. That's mine, okay, right on,
I like my Scotch in this in this old plastic
cup from the Olympics. I still have a cup from
(30:55):
the Olympics. My parents just paid so much for it.
I felt like we couldn't throw it away. Does have
is He on it? Is that his name? The weird
little does? Yeah? Yeah it does that little watcherman call
it of an idea? Yes, yeah for anyone that doesn't
isn't in the know? Atlanta host of the Olympics that year,
and then we like, I don't know, they probably paid
(31:15):
somebody gazillion dollars to design this stupid little blue cartoon
character named is He that was like this little yeah,
look at me, he can do spirit kind of little
pixie or something and just uh, in one defense, they
told the designer they wanted it to be something that
no one would know what it is, that was purposeful
(31:37):
and incorporating. Yeah. I don't think they designed or knows,
but but you know, his mascots go, this guy was
not the worst mascot anyhow. He probably didn't play curling
because those were not Winter Olympics. Still, it's a tough
job to make a mascot, and it's a tough job
to play any sort of sport. We do want to
(31:58):
note that there are several different I guess you would
say types of curling, right specialization. There's team curling that
has all male teams, all female identified teams juniors, there's
a wheelchair curling, and then there are what are called
mixed doubles. So this is definitely a sport that a
(32:21):
lot of people can get into and expect to do
reasonably well, right, which I would say also makes it
different from something like professional basketball or professional football. It
just seems like, I mean, it doesn't require you know,
feats of strength exactly. It's more feats of restraint, right,
It's like more about knowing exactly how much oomph to
(32:42):
give the thing when you're pushing it. And then I mean,
obviously it takes a little energy to scrub that ice
as you go. But Max, what do you think is
this a more accessible sport than say bob sledding or
you know, downhill slalom ng Oh, yes, most definitely. I
mean all you need for the sport is it's kind
of like a will a while hunt and just just
the experiment within. People are always like, what type a
(33:03):
shoeshout I wear? Like, don't need special shoes, It's like,
no normal shoes? Yeah, you got like any club you like?
Do you need a broom? Do you need the funniest ones?
I get asked like do I need to bring my
own stones? It's like eight of them for a team,
the forty two pounds a piece. Now you don't bring
your own stones? Nice? Yeah, Also no special shoes. Take
that bowling. That would be the other That would be
(33:25):
another sport where people would say you don't have to
be a certain body type to succeed. But we can't
conclude this episode without answering some of the big big questions.
These are questions I asked you very early on Max
when I found out about your fascination. Why is the
sport called curling? Other than describing the name, we haven't
(33:46):
explained this at all. So the reason why it's called
curling is because when you throw the stone, you either
turn the handle to the left or to the right
or clockwise counter clockwise, however you wish to prefer that,
and that causes the stone to curl that direction, so
it's not like you're just throwing stones straight. So let's
say there's a guard stone in the front of that
in front of the house, blocking stones behind it. You
(34:07):
can draw behind you can curl behind it that you
your stone behind that or I mean, it's very similar
in this English, right, putting English on a pool call
or putting spin on you know, any other kind of ball.
And that's and I was actually about a reference pool.
It's very someone that asked towards about angles, how can
I bounce these angles and position my stones? I mean,
what's really funny about the curling is it actually doesn't
(34:30):
make any sense because if you think about physics, if
it curls, if you're trying to curl it to the right,
it would go to the left. So curling stones actually
go the opposite direction of what they should. And no
one actually knows the answer to this because they're imbued
with wizard magic probably, I mean, and here's the funny things.
Do you ask a curl or we're like, oh, why
why does it do things? Like, I don't know. As
long as it curls the way I wanted to go,
(34:51):
then that's fine. Yeah, ok, Folk and also it's cool
that if you try to throw a stone straight with
no no spin on it, no curl, no english, then
it won't go straight. It'll just sort of go where
the ice wants, which is nuts because there is a
(35:13):
lot of science to this. And that gets us to
our next big question, what's the deal with the sweeping?
I feel like I'm in sixty minutes? What's the deal
was sweeping and curling? So the reason why you sweep
is curling ice is different from like hockey ice or
like figure skating ice, because that's just like flat, smooth,
perfect ice. You try to throw a curling stone on that,
(35:33):
it would go like three ft and stop and we'll
go a little further than that, but it wouldn't go well.
So what you do in curling is you like take
these little little device it looks like a ghost Buster
like backpack, and you put it on your back and
you spray this little like pebbles of ice on the sheet.
So it makes very little dust and that's what the
curling rocks slides on. And so the reason why you
(35:54):
sweep is if you sweep it, you're melting those little pebbles,
causing them to be even less friction for your stone
to go over, so it goes faster. And it was
going faster as less time to curl to go straight.
Or also, so let's say you have to get around
a guard. You sweep it, sweep it, sweep it, sweep it.
You get past the guard, you take off and just
slowly curls behind it. Interesting, Okay, so those folks who
(36:16):
are sweeping are doing something. It's not performance art. They're
not like making some commentary on the Industrial Revolution. I
always assumed they were doing something to help guide the
path of it or to like even like by by
by sweeping in a certain direction at a certain angle,
they could change the direction of the stone. Is that
(36:37):
accurate or no? So they claim they can do that,
but it's been a common joke that directional sweeping it
doesn't actually work. I mean you heard it. I heard
a lot on the past Olympics like, oh, they're sweeping
on that side for the directional and I think maybe
at an Olympic level with semi professional curlers, there's no
such thing really as a professional curler, and like, but
(36:58):
like professionally maintained ice maybe do it. But like you
go to a local curling club. There's no way in
hell you're gonna be able to direct it with your
sweeping Okay, unless you're somebody who like has a practice
ice sweeping drink at your house. Right, Okay, alright, goals,
let's make it happen. When we wrap this episode up,
(37:20):
maybe we take this history into the future and maybe
there are some of our fellow ridiculous historians who are asking, well,
this sounds cool. How can I start to become a curler,
A curlsman, a curl folk, myself, curler, curler? Okay, curls folk,
I like, but I respect your expertise here, Max. So these,
(37:42):
uh you mentioned there are these clubs that people can join.
How do you how do you get involved? What's going on? Well,
I mean, so like people think like, oh, there's probably
no curling clubs. There's a hundred and eighty five of them.
I believe that's what USA Curling says. Kros the United States,
and obviously like Minnesota, Michigan, New York, may and they
(38:04):
got a lot of them. But that does not mean
that like here on at the warmer states are excluded.
So there's three clubs in Tennessee. There's actually four in Florida,
and there's seven in California, including three in Los Angeles.
There's a lot of them. Wow. And you know, without
without putting you two on the spot, rumor has it,
there's even a curling club here in our fair metropolis
(38:26):
of Atlanta, Georgia. Yes, there is. There is the Atlanta
Curling Club located here in our fair metropolis, as you
have said, and they curl at the Atlanta Ice Forum.
And but I'll let you take the honors here. You
can read this Nextlanta have in the brief. It may
or may not have been co founded by our lovely superproducer,
(38:46):
the one, the amazing, the self described ungodly Maxwell James
William the first. I think we need a sound right now.
(39:07):
You just just just full name Max. I love that
is he in troubles. That's that's a quote for him. Also,
I like adding the first there that's classy first of
his name Maxwell. I'm gonna start using that. But yeah,
and also if you're ever interested, you just go to
the USA Curling and they have a fine club. Tool Kid,
We'll just show you the closest one. If you're near
(39:28):
any big metropolitan area, there's probably curling club in area,
and you too can become a part of the spirit
of curling, which is a very important concept unique to
the support. I mean, it's not unique to this sport.
It's called the spirit of curling. It's unique, but it embodies,
you know, the idea of respect to one another, of
(39:48):
people that are playing the sport, but also to the
sport itself. It's about skill and tradition, about executing shots well,
about taking joy in others and in their success. So
I really really is kind of I like the fact
that you're playing against other teams, but not like head
to head, like you know, clashing. You're just sort of
(40:08):
doing your own thing and then it all comes out
in the wash in terms of the scoring. Uh. This
is all from the World Curling Federation, by the way
that they describe the spirit of curling. Thus, like true
curler never attempts to distract opponents, nor to prevent them
from playing their best. It would prefer to lose rather
than to win unfairly. Curlers never knowingly break a rule
(40:31):
of the game, nor disrespect any of its traditions. Should
they become aware that this has been done inadvertently, they
would be the first to devolve the breach, which is
really you know, wholesome. And you can see this in
curling games where the opposing team will congratulate their rivals
on a really well done move, the every everybody on
(40:53):
the everybody on the ice will have that oh snap,
cool moments, which doesn't happen all the time and other sports.
So that's one of the reasons I think that we are,
at least I am a newly converted fan of curling.
And we hope that you enjoyed today's episode. Folks. This
may this may have been a little longer than usual,
(41:15):
but uh, there's a lot of love went into this
when a lot of and a lot of research too.
So for that we have to start by thinking the
super producer, the man, the myth, the legend, lover of sports,
lover of trains, curling and star trek, Mr Max Williams.
It has been an honor, Yes, it's been an honor
as well. It's been a lot of fun. Uh. You know,
any time I get a chance to talk about curling,
(41:36):
I like to take advantage of that. I know you do, buddy,
and now I at least am armed with the knowledge
to be able to properly engage with you on this um,
on this topic. So so next time you won't go
to sleep while the US is playing in a gold
medal match. What I'm sorry? Yes, true story, one story
I want to leave us with before we finally end this.
(41:56):
Back in twenty the United States one, they're only gold
medal and curling. It's when the John's Schuster led team
upset the favorite Sweden for the golden medal. This was
during the infamous hot tub trip. Then this is the
cabin trip, Mr Noel Brown. This is a trip he
drake that whiskey that he apologized for on Tuesday's episode.
(42:19):
He was there, the opportunity was there, but he opted
for sleep. Granted it was in Korea at the time,
and it was very, very very early in the morning
when I was watching this, but it was magical night,
magical night. Indeed, So ashamed, uh, not really ashamed at all.
I do not recall any of this, Max, but I
I believe your recollection, at least when curling is involved.
(42:41):
And I do apologize for drinking that fine bottle of whiskey,
but it was good and probably contributed to my sleepiness.
I'm not gonna lie I end up during the rest
of it while during the match myself, it must have
been an awesome brunch moments a few hours later. With this,
we also of course want to thank our composer, Mr
Alex Williams. Check out his go with his brother Max
ephemeral When you get a chance, Thanks to Eve's Jeff Coat,
(43:04):
thanks to Christopher Hasciotis, and thanks to Jonathan Strickland. I
think this. I think participating in curling could probably do
a lot for that guy. Emotionally. I know he's really angry.
He's just so angry. We'll see you next time, folks.
(43:25):
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.