NATIONAL DAY

Curling is Cool Day is not dedicated to those of us naturally or otherwise endowed with glistening spiralling locks of hair. Oh, no, no! This is the day George Clooney and Bruce Springsteen get to play their all-time favourite sport and call it cool. Most of us out there will probably wonder what the fuss is about, but if youre a curling enthusiast, then by Jove do you owe the people who invented it a colossal thank you!A Scottish game developed in the 1500s that the Canadians seem to be exceedingly good at- if Winter Olympic Games are anything to go by- curling involves launching a stone on ice and sweeping the ice in its path as it attempts to land on a target and dislodge your competitors rocks. But wait, theres more. The sweepers wear special shoes, one that slides and one that doesnt, and the stone is more like a 40 pound granite bomb that looks suspiciously too much like a macaroon. The brooms are slightly more evolved now than the ordinary sweepers they used back in the 1900s. In fact, theyre hardly reminiscent of a witchs broom, at all. The floors are sheets of ice with vinyl markings underneath, for the target, rather than the frozen lake surfaces that were used back in the day. The concept, though, is very much the same. You launch, you sweep, and you score.While the intricacies of the game will not keep you awake at night, they will certainly be sufficient to keep the children entertained, so what better reason to send them out into the blistering cold to play with a rock? But youll have to all join in, because two teams of four are needed to play. So gather-round for a bonspiel and find out why everybody and his uncle played this game and said its cooler than bowls and shuffleboard. Admittedly, the competition isnt the stiffest youd find in the world of sports. So dont waste any time. Go out there and find out why hammer-time in curling has nothing to do with MC Hammer!