Give it a go: curling

Demonstrating curling at the Dunedin Ice Stadium is Murray Pitts. PHOTO: STEPHEN JAQUIERY
Demonstrating curling at the Dunedin Ice Stadium is Murray Pitts. PHOTO: STEPHEN JAQUIERY
Murray Pitts was introduced to the sport of curling through watching his daughter Rachael play it.

She took it up at high school and became a New Zealand under-21 representative who competed at the junior-B world championships in Finland two years ago.

Mr Pitts decided to give curling a try himself.

He found his first attempt frustrating, because he was familiar with the theory of what he was trying to achieve, but putting it into practice was another matter.

However, he started to get a feel for it and he filled in at a doubles competition in his first season.

Mr Pitts (48) said the sport was both competitive and social and it required skill and strategy.

"You don’t master it in a season or three."

He plays hack curling, the form of the sport seen at the Winter Olympics.

A curling player releases each stone with a rotation so it curls slightly on its way to the intended target along the ice.

Team-mates sweep in front of the stone, reducing friction between it and the surface to straighten the curl and increase the stone’s travelling distance.

Mr Pitts said stones curled more as they slowed.

The other form of the sport played in Dunedin is crampit curling, which is the traditional game, originally played on ice outdoors.

Crampit curling is done from a metal platform, instead of sliding from a hack.

Curling came to New Zealand with Scottish immigrants in the 1860s. The Dunedin Curling Club was formed in 1873.

The club runs have-a-go sessions and Sport Otago organises a schools’ curling competition.

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