As the ice returns to Watson Arena, a tight-knit and dedicated group of athletes begin their training, ready to earn Bowdoin yet another championship.
Watch out hockey: it’s curling season.
When most Americans think of curling—if they think of it at all—they call up vague Olympic memories of an accentric sport that resembles ice bowling, but for Carl Spielvogel ’13 and his friends, watching the event during the 2010 Vancouver games led to an important realization.
“We decided that we should start a team at Bowdoin,” Spielvogel said.
They soon hired a coach and began practicing at a facility in Belfast, Maine.
In an unlikely twist, the band of newcomers took their league by storm, winning the 2011 National College Curling Championships in Chicago.
“It felt really incredible to win in our first season, after pouring so much time into it,” said Spielvogel.
Since that high point, the team has remained competitive.
Meanwhile, college curling has taken off nationwide and Maine is no exception to this burgeoning trend. According to Spielvogel, Bowdoin’s success inspired Unity College and Bates College to form teams.
Although the sport is still foreign to many, the rules are fairly simple: one player slides the stone—a granite projectile weighing roughly 50 pounds—towards a target, or “house,” painted on the ice. Two other players follow the stone, brushing the ice in front of it and using friction to control its speed and direction. A team scores by getting stones as close to the house as possible.
As I found out for myself, all of this requires technique, precision, and strategy. I joined a few members of the team at Watson, where they will practice this season. In the past, the curlers had to travel more than 70 miles away to the Belfast facility.
When I stepped onto the rink, Spielvogel was spraying the ice with hot water from what looked like a backpack vacuum from Ghostbusters. He explained this was to cover the ice with small droplets which freeze into bumps, forming a new, raised layer for the stone to slide on. This bumpy layer has less surface area than the ice sheet below, resulting in less friction.
What about those brooms? Scrubbing the ice hard enough causes it to melt a little and the more it melts the faster the stone travels.
Over the course of a match, or bonspiel, the ice becomes slicker, forcing players to constantly adjust their tactics.
“When you’re throwing the stone, you want to give it a certain speed. To do that, you have to rely on muscle memory, because the stone requires a different push to reach the target in 1 second than in 1.15 seconds. It’s really hard.”
I decided to try out the motion. I put a slider on the bottom of my left shoe, and place my right foot in a contraption that resembles a starting block. I crouch down and push off.
Almost immediately, I lose balance, unceremoniously sprawling out onto the ice. When properly executed, this move looks like a graceful, sliding lunge.
Putting me to shame, Spielvogel promptly demonstrates expert form. Which leads me to ask how he and his teammates succeeded so quickly. Natural talent? “Yeah, let’s go with that,” he says.
Bowdoin’s team, like the sport as a whole, looks forward to a bright future. The team already played several matches in Ohio over Fall Break, and performed well without having practiced much before going on the trip.
With the original squad graduating this year, Spielvogel and others are encouraging newcomers to try the sport for themselves. It’s a big commitment: the season lasts from early October to early April— as long there is ice to play on.
“The time and energy you put in is totally worth it. It’s always a blast when we travel to other schools, or invite a bunch of teams to Bowdoin. The camaraderie’s really great,” he said.
“And it feels good to win.”