Quality of amateur curling (sport)

I’ve only had time to watch about two hours of Olympics coverage so far: UK vs. S. Korea women’s curling, and US vs. S. Korea women’s curling. In watching parts of just these two matches, it seemed obvious to me that the US women’s curling team sucks at curling. I was super impressed by the precision and strategy present in the UK/Korea match. I was literally laughing out loud at the blind-monkey outcomes of the US team’s throws. I later confirmed my read by finding lots of online discussions about how bad the US is at curling.

My question is this: Is amateur curling a disaster? Or, is the US team just a weird case where no one good bothered to show up? If the US team really is made up of the best players (or team?) in the US, then I have to imagine that amateur curling is just a string of random flying stones (and beer).

Take bowling as a counter-example. An amateur that’s bowled a reasonable amount can get plenty of strikes and rarely throws a gutter ball. But imagine if the alley were, like, 1000 feet long and only the best-of-the-best could actually do anything strategic. It would become a specialty sport, where you need to train long and hard to even be able to employ basic skills and strategy.

So, is amateur curling like that?

I think the U.S. teams just underachieve at the Olympics. Hard to say why, but I think we’re kinda stuck in a weird middle ground where the national events and Olympic trials are practically ignored, but then it becomes a really big deal once they’re at the games. That huge leap in exposure and pressure may be getting to them. U.S. women finished in the top 5 in three of the last four world championships. The men’s team did slightly better than the women’s (winning 2 games, the women only won 1), but had to play through a qualifying tournament to get into the ten-team field for the Olympics.

The U.S. has put up pretty good results in international play before. America is not a world curling powerhouse but they aren’t usually this bad.

Curling is a tough mental sport and once you’ve lost your confidence things can fall apart very quickly.

To a first approximation, amateur curling in the United States doesn’t exist. Canada has 100 times the number of amateur curlers as the US, with 10% of our population.

Yeah, but we’re working on it.

Freddy, are you sure about that? I’d heard that Curling was showing a spike in popularity in the US, since it became an Olympic sport. I couldn’t find numbers on the net, but I did check the club my parents used to curl at, and there’s a wait list to become a member. 25-30 years ago, the club always had extra capacity.

My club is full, and has been for the last couple seasons. For the number of curlers in the U.S., I usually see estimates around 13,000-20,000. I don’t think Canada has 100 times that, but 50 wouldn’t surprise me.

And it’s gaining popularity here, but slowly. I heard of a new club in Portland (Oregon) that opened recently, and breaking ground on one in Denver. And I think our junior teams have been placing respectably in the world championships, so there’s talent in the pipeline for Olympics to come.

The US Curling Association claims 16,500 members. The comparable figure I’ve heard for Canada is 1.3 million. So I’m rounding off to get to 1 percent; 1.25% is more like it.

Yes, the sport is growing in the US–but from such a small base.

My club is growing as well. But from an Olympic standpoint, it doesn’t matter how many middle-aged duffers like me take up the game. I’m not going to get any closer to the Olympics than a TV set. Juniors are where it’s at. And in much of the country, good luck finding a good juniors program. Better luck still finding other good young curlers to compete against, without having to travel thousands of miles.

Curling is a tiny niche sport in the US, not played in much of the country, on TV for a total of ten days every four years, requiring tons of travel for top competition, with minimal opportunities for sponsorship and income. The wonder is that we qualify for the Olympics at all, not that we do so poorly.

My club hosted the junior nationals last year; there was good play and some sponsorship dollars in evidence. We had players on the winning men’s team that year, and the year before.

And don’t be too hard on the middle-aged duffers. There’s one from my club (moved away a couple years ago) working as a judge at the Olympics. I’ve seen him in the background a couple times.

It’s growing from a small base, but you gotta start somewhere.

Actually, you’re right; even a duffer like me helps, because I buy equipment and lessons, which creates sponsorship and coaching opportunities, and I pay dues which help to fund national programs. More curlers, even bad ones, can only help the sport. But ultimately, we need more people (not just children of curlers) taking up the sport at an early age, just like you need to start most sports early to get really good.

Just realized that it’s no coincidence that your club, and my parents’ old club both have waiting lists for membership… they’re the same club.

Are there any new (past 20 years) rinks in the area? I saw that Winchester shut down. Petersham still open?

Also one good thing coming from the Olympic drubbings, the last two cycles, is that people are actually upset about the US’ Curling Team performances. 20 years ago, the only complaint about US curling was that the cocktails were too weak at the friendlies :slight_smile:

NPR did a story on this in the last couple of days and as I recall the number citedwas 60% growth in 10 years or so, but as Freddy states the totsl number is still insignificant.
I got interested after the last Olympics and looked at joining the local club in Charlotte. Without a dedicated venue it amounted to shelling out big bucks to join a bowling league where the only practice you get are league matches and you won’t even play all of those.

Freddy, following our conversation from our other thread I’ve figured out whag bothered me about the US team calling weights the way they did. The other teams I follow, the UK and Canada, don’t do it anywhere near as often. They may call it out once or twice. The US women looked downright amateurish (the bad kind).

I’ll be damned. How long ago did they play? I’ve only been there a couple years, but I may know people who knew them.

My parents were active from 1975 through 1990. A long time ago. I think I saw Grayland curl as a teenager around 1975 – his dad, Bill, was a terrific skip(and as good a person) and he taught my dad to be a good skip as well, before the family moved away.

All interesting stuff, thanks.

I want to bump the core of my original query, although from context I can maybe guess the answer: How “good” a sport is amateur curling? Is it closer to bowling or closer to my hypothetical version bowling in the OP in terms of the ability of amateurs to execute skill and strategy in a noticeable way?


I forgot to answer the other part of your post. I haven’t curled at any other clubs, yet; but I do hear people talking about the other clubs in the area. Petersham, from what I can tell, seems to be up and running. There’s a curling facility at The Country Club in Brookline, one somewhere out on Cape Cod, one in Nashua, New Hampshire, one in Maine, a couple in Connecticut (although one there burned down a couple years ago), and a few in New York (mostly upstate).

I’ll be at my first out-of-town bonspiel in Schenectady in a couple weeks. Wish me luck.

As a physical skill, it’s somewhat similar to bowling. (It’s been so long since I learned to bowl that I can’t even remember how long it took to learn the basics.) I think the aim has to be a little more precise in curling (at least at the top level), and you have a greater range of speed to master. Curling also has a strategic aspect that bowling lacks.

Which is not to say it’s hard to get into. We rent out our club for holiday parties and such, and I’ve instructed at several of them. After 30 minutes, you won’t fall on your ass. Another 30 minutes and you can deliver the stone. By the end of three hours, everybody (almost) is having a good time. If you keep at it, after 3 or 4 games you’ll be trying to make shots, and sometimes succeeding.

It’s a very quick learning curve to get started and having fun. And then you can spend the rest of your life trying to get perfect at it.

Bowling and curling are both sports where the difficulty lies not in performing a particular action, but in performing it over and over, a very high percentage of the time.

An average fit and healthy adult, introduced to bowling, will probably get a strike at some point during his or her first game. An average fit and healthy adult, introduced to curling, will probably throw a near-perfect shot at some point during his or her first game.

The challenge, of course, is to raise your strike percentage or your perfect-shot percentage, first to double digits, then over 25, then over 50, and then . . . well, the farther you go, the harder it gets. Nobody gets to 100, or it wouldn’t be a sport, but to play at the top levels you have to be way closer to 100 than most weekend players.

Curling in many ways is harder than bowling, because you need both line and weight. (In bowling, with some exceptions on spares, more weight is better; you don’t need precise calibration.) The kick-slide and release of a curling delivery is less intuitive than a bowling delivery. Curling also involves some ancillary skills such as weight judgment (for sweepers) and line judgment and strategy (for skips), which cannot be learned quickly. There is no substitute for experience.

Both curling and bowling involve reading surface conditions–lanes or ice. Indeed this is a big part of the challenge for experienced players.

I’m not sure if any of that answers your question. Comparing sports is hard. Being the best at any sport is hard.

Thanks, this is right along the lines of what I was after, particularly Robot Arm’s statement that “if you keep at it, after 3 or 4 games you’ll be trying to make shots, and sometimes succeeding.”

Sounds like golf, too - a few hours with a club and pretty much anyone can play a little par three course.

There are fairly active curling clubs in the Midwest - Dululth, Hibbing, Fargo and St. Paul all have them - but it tends to be a sport where there are long winters and people are comfortable on ice. That really isn’t most of the U.S.