Most of the men in this picture would never even dream of using a broom to at home sweep the floor.

A friend once described curling as "a combination of hockey, shuffleboard, and house cleaning." Still makes me laugh.

I curled throughout my teens in Winnipeg, at least twice a week for half the year, always indoors. In fact, Winnipeg has the greatest number of sheets of ice for curling in the world, not per capita, but straight numbers. And for two consecutive years (70 and 71), a Winnipegger, Don Duguid from the Granite Curling Club, was world champion, of which we were immensely proud. It's a strategy game, and at the time (70s) you could smoke while you played. Needless to say, there are no bank shots (hitting the side boards puts a rock out of play), and the curling-cue is of course a broom (which has morphed over the years from corn through fabric to a push broom). The furthest I ever got was to the junior fours of the whole province, one year during high school.

I can hear the photographer yelling "Freeze" before taking the picture...and the reaction was..."oh yeah".

here in Canada, by the sound of the rocks gliding over the ice surface, now it's the sound of people screaming loudly "hurry hard!"