1892

 

Curling in Canada Pt.1

"Why don't you make a trial of curling, doctor? You would grow fond of it," said a Canadian one day to an Englishman, newly arrived, who was looking on at an Ontario match.

"Oh dear no," was the reply, "I can't see anything in it. In fact it seems to me so very absurd, don't you know - sweeping, sweeping, where there is really nothing to sweep."

"But there is some virtue in the sweeping, and then there is fun in it too," persisted the Canadian, who was imbued with the spirit of sport and had experience of the grand old game. "And there is really something besides the sweeping."

"Now look here, my dear sir," went on the doctor. "See that fellow with the broom, sweeping and shouting and sweeping again in front of that curling stone, when any ass could see with half an eye that the ice is as smooth and clean as glass already. Why, he acts like a lunatic."

"Ah! But you don't understand. By Jove! rather than work as hard as those fellows do, I should hire a flunkey to do the sweeping. Besides, I can't see much room for skill in the game, sliding those funny things along the ice; a kind of shuffle-board business."

His companion, nettled at such determined obtuseness, as he deemed it, made a vigorous protest at this prejudging, and expended some eloquence in describing the qualities of the model curler, the intricacies and the proverbially slippery chances of the game. To which the other answered only:

"Can't say that I care for it. But I say, old man, there is a Scottish game, I don't recollect what you call it, but a man takes a small white ball and hits it a whack across country with a sort of hammer. Then he walks a quarter of a mile and hits it again. I could like that sort of thing, don't you know, because you get so much walking. But in this curling game I know I should take cold."

Doubtless there are those amongst ourselves who share the prejudices of our friend the doctor, and are thereby prevented from taking part in this invigorating and spirit-stirring recreation. A like class of critics would call cricket "slow," football, "brutal," tennis, "namby-pamby," lacrosse, "dangerous." But a little honest experience would convince any one that curling well deserves the name of the king of winter sports. It is simple, cheerful, healthful and not costly. Within a dozen years the discovery has been made by some thousands of people, in some scores of places in Canada and the States, that curling is a game not for elderly men alone, or for Scotchmen alone, but for young and old, for Saxon and Celt, for American and Canadian, for anyone, indeed, who enjoys a simple and bracing sport, free, from the professional as well as the gambling element. An American curler describes curling well in saying, "One of the first and strictest rules of the game is good humour and kindly feeling under all circumstances and provocations; and a training which results in the combination of this quality of self-control with manly strength and cool judgment cannot fail to make good men."  There is another feature about curling which should commend it to the Americans; it is a democratic game. As in the old country, according to Norman McLeod's delightful curling song, we find "the master and servants, the tenant and laird" coming together o'er the brown heather to the curler's gathering, so on this side of the Atlantic we may see the millionaire and the artisan, the banker and his clerk, the university professor and his pupil, the dominie and the clergyman, all met in the frosty weather and, if not as loving as Norman would have them, still all civil, all gleeful, all equally free.

To describe curling too minutely would be tedious for a circle of readers most of whom have seen the game. To commend it, or to attempt to point out all its enjoyments would seem to its habituates a task which must be, as the quaint definition goes, "beyond a man's duty, yea over and above what is necessary." And yet there is much about curling that deserves and even needs both description and explanation. People often regard the amusement as "unhealthy," because played upon the ice, and as a drinking game because in its literature drams and carouses of a bygone day are mentioned. But curlers are as a rule healthy and hardy, all the more so in the curling season; nor is there ever, in this country, drinking on the ice.

Then again, we have heard it decried as an old man's game, and one exclusively affected by Scotchmen. These long exploded notions are scarcely longer worth contradicting. Canadians and Americans of youth and middle age at least know better, for they have had a taste of its quality. It is too late in the day to assert that there is a charm in the game. If there not, we should hardly see, as we do, 600 clubs with 20,000 members in Scotland, 40 clubs in England and Ireland, 100 clubs in Ontario and 50 in the other Canadian provinces, with perhaps 50 to 100 more in the United States, enthusiastic in pursuit of it.

People in the present day have tastes and prejudices in great variety on the subject of recreation. The yachtsman, as he bares his throat to the fresh breeze, feels an expansive contempt for the man who labours on a safety bicycle. And in like manner we have heard adepts at cricket wonder what attraction any one could find in lawn tennis, and deny strenuously that there was anything good in baseball. The quiet, sluggish-blooded whist player, on the other hand, marvels than any person should want to go snowshoeing; and the genteel billiard player objects to the violent exertion of ten-pins. Happily the variety of our amusements corresponds in some degree to this diversity of temper or physique. But is distinctive of Canadians, as a rule, that they are fondest of out-door games - a valuable feature of our national disposition. With our clear sky and bracing air it should be a disgrace to blanch indoors when so great a diversity of pleasure awaits us in the open.

Residents of the Dominion have many good reasons for being on friendly terms with winter, that "wide-awake old boy whose bluff sincerity and hearty ways are more wholesome for us than any charms of which his rivals are capable." Therefore we find, as Lowell says, many a good word for winter, not being of those who take the merely thermometrical view of the frosty season. An appropriate pendant to his essay would be the lines from the Carnival poem of John Reade:

Thomson, Akenside, Wordsworth, who have all written of winter from the blazing fireside point of view, were none of them curlers, else they would have found something more exteriorly cheerful to say of this delightful season than that it was one of "heavy gloom," "uncomfortable frost," demoralizing cold. Robert Chambers, in a delightful paper on winter well says that the four chief requisites to enable men to endure weather are food, clothing, activity and cheerfulness. Two elements out of these four are admirably furnished by the game of curling; for a curler is bound to be active and he is also sure to be cheerful. An uncheery curler is a monstrosity.

Out-door curling on a fine day, with good ice, is, as a health-giving, inspiriting, exciting amusement, excelled by no sport of which we have experience. "The air you drink is frappe - a purer current mounts to the brain, courses sparkling through it, and rinses it thoroughly of all dejected stuff." One can understand, after he has taken part in such a scene, why it is that Burns, an eminently out-of-door poet, tells us that "to the lochs the curlers hie wi' gleesome speed." That was a hundred years ago. But to the rinks or ponds the curlers hie to-day, no whit less gleesome and each no whit less anxious that the sides may not be chosen till he gets there. Merrily the players sweep and scrap the ice of the pond, describe the magic ring around the 'tee,' draw the 'hog scores,' cut the 'hacks' in the ice into which the player shall put his right foot, and after choice of players the game begins.

"Give me a quiet in-turn draw," calls out the skip, placing his broom upon the ice, and the player, balancing his body on the left foot, draws back his curling stone and slides it along the ice, giving it, by means of a turn of the elbow-joint and wrist towards his body, the circling motion to the right that his captain has desired. But the stone stops short of the "hog score" and is therefore removed from the ice. The opposing lead now plays, obedient to like instructions, and lands within the rings, to be commended by his skip. But the first player has another chance, and this time passes the opposing stone and lies beyond it half hidden or "guarded," and close to the "tee," or centre of the rings. "Draw past or else take off the guard," shouts skip No. 2 to his player, "try the out-turn," for it happens that the stones lie so that the "shot" can best be reached from the right side but his own stone cannot with safety be "raised". Away goes the stone, circling to the left, but either he has aimed wide of the broom or his speed is too great to allow the stone to affect its course, for it glides past the guard, past the winner, past the tee.

"Missed everything, by Jove!" shouts the skip, and stamps, frowning, up and down the ice, if he be a testy man, or if a considerate one giving a kindly word to the disconsolate player who is mentally kicking himself for his miss. Observant of the danger from an out-turn stone, the first skip endeavours to protect this shot by another guard. The player plays wide and lags outside the rings. Then comes a chance for the second player to do what the lead missed. And he plays with great deliberation and remains stooping on the ice to watch the effect. The first and third players, as if with one impulse, run along either side the moving stone, wishing, yet fearing, to assist its quiet progress. All at once the skips calls, "Sweep, sweep, - Oh! bring him on, stick to him boys, - sweep! don't let him stop, he's coming dead for it, polish him in!" And the panting sweepers polish the ice and coax the stone forward by all endearing terms as they await the expected collision. It comes; but touches the front stone very gently, without having the desired effect. Two more stones are played without altering the position and then came the turn of the third players. "Now Tom, you see what I want, and you can do it. Come up, tee-high, a little over a draw. Wick this stone on to the winner and I will give you the shot, with however a chance to get at it by playing an in-turn.

"You must draw this port now, Tom. Don't make any mistake about it. There's the borrow - a full draw." Delivered fairly at the broom, the stone leaves the player's hand an evident winner, causing the delighted skip to drop into the vernacular and make a curious mixture of the domestic with the imported language of the game. "Oh! man, Tom, you're a brick - played to a hair's breadth - don't put a cowe on't! Eh! but that has the vera pith - he's the shot for a guinea." Then suddenly, as the stone loses momentum he springs forward. "Help him on, sweepers; in wi' him, what ails him? Great Scott!" he continues, as the stone having stopped short, he stoops to examine it and finds that it had run over a piece of broom-corn, which adhered to the bottom of the stone and impeded its force - "That's no fault of yours, tom; it's a dreadful pity, that's all. Hech! that was a winner as sure's death." And this little circumstance prevents his getting the "end," for the subsequent play of the skips does not alter the original position, Tom's stone leaving an unintentionally good defense for his opponent. And so this "end" is over and the next begins.

Narratives by the hundred might be had of exciting scenes of the sort from any group of curlers disposed to fight their battles o'er again conversationally. It must be remembered, as a matter which heightens the standard of judgment of distance and skill of hand that in curling the "object ball," to use a billiard term, is usually forty yards away or more, the distance from the "hack" where the player stands to the farthest "tee" being 126 feet. To strike a stone at all, at this distance, is no small feat for an uninstructed person. But to so strike it that one shall "raise" it straight a yard or a foot - to so wick it that it shall carom against another and drive that other out of the rings - to deliver a stone, weighing forty, or an iron say sixty pounds in such wise that it shall traverse 120 feet of ice and lie as a "guard" exactly in front of a stone 124 feet distant - these are the fine points of the game that command the instant admiration of athlete or sport.

There is a difference between curling with iron "stones" and those made of granite. I do not mean that the game is different, for its rules are identical in both cases. But to illustrate - Expert granite players will tell you, with some warmth, that to play with heavy iron "stones" 50 or 60 pounds weight, is the work of navvies, not of gentlemen; that the weight of the stone is too great to admit of any delicacy of play; and that besides, the dull deadness of the "chug" heard when one iron curling stone strikes another lacks the cheerful, inspiring traditional "clink" that comes of the collision of two granite stones. On the other hand, votaries of iron playing point out that climatic reasons make these metal stones preferable; that the greater diameter of their bearings causes them to hold the ice better than granite; that it is possible to draw narrower "ports" and to make more delicate play with them than with granites.

As one who was first taught to curl with irons in Montreal, and who has for a dozen years curled with stone in Ontario, perhaps I may be allowed to say that both claimants are right, in part. But I will join with any curler east of the River Trent in laughing to scorn the notion of a man who says that delicacy of play is impossible with irons. Why I have seen on the ice of the Montreal, the Caledonian, the Thistle clubs in the grand old city of the Royal Mount, shots taken that equaled in delicacy the exploits of a Roberts or a Dion on the billiard table. Draws, guards, wicks, raises, played to a fraction of an inch - the seemingly impossible performed with a nicety of skill, a steadiness of brain and muscle, an exactness of calculation and delivery that would convince any man not a Bourbon. "A clear eye and a steady hand" are pronounced by Dr. Sidey or some other curling authority to be essential in a curler. And no one who does not possess them can reach a place among the immortals in the game. These qualifications of course presuppose good physical "form," which is not compatible with excess of any sort. A good curler must be a man of steady habits. It is not a matter of temperament. Many will confirm me when I say that the cool, unimpassioned, deliberate player is often equaled in performance by the ardent, even irascible curler in whom the perfervidum ingenium is by a supreme effort subdued to the accuracy of aim and firmness of execution called for in an emergency. The game makes great demands, then, upon one's self-control. It is not without reason that a Scottish writer has declared:

For a skip to lose his temper means usually that he loses his game. As in whist, a curler may not play his own hand exclusively. He must regard the rights of parties, friend or foes. It is easy to wreck an "end" by demoralizing one's players in an outburst of fault finding. As an example of patient resolution and iron-nerved skill I think that a game between the Ottawa Club and the Montreals two rinks a side, played on the Vice-Regal Rink during the regime of Lord Lansdowne will live in the recollection of those who witnessed it. Geordie Hutchison and Scott were the Ottawa skips; David Williamson and Stancliffe those of the Montreal. The Ottawa men were at one time 21 points ahead, an adverse score enough of itself to dishearten any who were not of sterling stuff. But this seemingly hopeless minority was reduced point by point until the contestants tied and the score at the close showed the Montreals winners by two points. The Governor-General was intensely interested and left some function at Rideau Hall to witness the conclusion of the match.

I recall a memorable game played on the Thistle ice in Montreal, between that club and the Quebec club some time in the seventies or eighties. Those steady players, the Brodies and their friends, Edwin Pope among them, if I recollect aright, were pitted against George Kay, Alex. Mitchell and others, for, I think, the Quebec Challenge Cup. The ice was beautifully true and keen, everything trim, as "William" knew how to make it. In one end seven or eight stones had been played to rest within the four foot rings, several of them touching each other, delivered "to an ounce" and so played that when the skip's turn came to play it was a matter of raising a stone two inches to the tee by one skip to secure the end for his side, and of the other to prevent this by guarding. So keen was the ice that a dead guard was most difficult. The situation was critical. There was no capering or shouting then. The spectators were discreetly silent, the skips grave, their men anxious. Never were four stones watched with more solicitude by fifty pairs of eyes. Down came one stone of Kay's aimed to wick off a half guard and open a port to get at his own front stone and so raise it in for a winner. This was done to a nicety - his next stone stood a chance to win if Brodie did not guard. Brodie studied the position, rubbed his chin, turned and walked slowly up the ice to the hack, looking back at the rings as he went. His third man gave him the borrow. Taking his broom the skip carefully wiped the bottom of his stone and with deliveration layed out-turn for a guard, and then stood like a statue to watch its course. "Sweep," called the vice-skip as the stone came slowly down. "Polish him hard!" - and the two sweepers strained their arms and their brooms. It stopped, a half-guard, five feet from the tee. Kay fidgeted; it was his last stone. A swift shot would not do, and yet as the stones lay a narrow borrow was necessary. On consultation with his vice-skip, they agreed upon "a full draw to raise," and George went smartly up the ice, beckoning to his men to be ready to sweep. The stone was played exactly to the broom, but Kay's impatience would not let him stand at the hack to watch it and he followed it down, running with broom in air. "No, no!" he roared to his lead who was essaying to sweep. "Not a cowe! there's enough in it." And so there was. But alas! that guard of Brodie's was in the path. It caught the edge of George's stone, deflected it about two degrees, and the end was Brodie's, who threw his second stone fifty feet down the ice and said, with a shake of the head, "It was a close shave."

No better indication of the attractive features of the game can be found than the fact that the young men of the country are taking hold of it in increasing number. A marked change in this respect is evident to any observer of the players on the rinks in Montreal, for example. A larger proportion of young men is to be found among active curlers than was the case twenty, or even ten, years ago. The same thing is observable in Ontario, and it is true, I believe, of the United States. In the recent bonspiel at Toronto between American and Canadian curlers a much greater relative number of young or middle-aged men was present among the visitors than on former occasions of a like kind. Happily the scene was honoured by the presence of such experienced players and fine men as Paterson, of New Jersey; McClintock, George Grieve, Foulis and Nicholson, of New York; Peattie, of Utica; George Macnoe, of Buffalo; Williamson, sr., of Detroit. The last named is a typical curler; seventy years of age, erect, keen, cheery, he is clearly one of those who has observed the injunction of the old Scotchman who counselled a neighbour with respect to his sons: "See that ye bring them up in the fear 'o the Lord and in the love o' curling'." Mr. Williamson has three sons, all curlers; and when they played against a rink of the Toronto Granite Club - whom they defeated - it was easily seen that the sportsmanlike spirit of the father was in the sons, for by the time the game was over they had quite won the friendship of their opponents. The Americans went home greatly pleased with their visit to Canada. It was a great week at the rinks; for in order to accommodate the restless desire of the visitors to curl on such ice and in such weather as is not so often to be be had on the Hudson, the Mohawk or the Delaware, relays of players had to be provided morning, afternoon and night in the covered sheds. The original scheme of having the bonspeil on Grenadier Pond, near Toronto, was abandoned by reason of a heavy fall of snow which rendered the clearing of such a large space in time impracticable.

A writer in a local paper, referring to this International Bonspiel said: - "Whatever is the fascination of sweeping ice and slinging "stones," and shouting unintelligibly, as the rinks make or lose, those people who take delight therein do seem to have a good time. And it sweeps the cobwebs out of one's brains to hear their hearty voices, and warms the cockles of one's heart to see how much in earnest they are over their game." This writer, and many more non-curlers, fail to understand the charm of the game. In which respect they resemble the good doctor mentioned at the outset of this paper.

(To be continued)

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