Saturday night sweep

Senior Tai Moore shares her experience with the sport of curling

by Michael Zegel health & sports staff

When people think of winter sports, hockey, skiing, ice skating and snowboarding tend to be the first few that come to mind. While the sport of curling is very niche and somewhat complicated, senior Tai Moore appreciates and embraces the complexity, intricacy and strategy that comes along with it.

“Curling is a sport usually done in the winter where two teams of four people throw rocks on a sheet of ice at a target that’s drawn on the ground,” Moore said. “There is also a specific way that you count points. There’s specific rules on how to throw the rocks and there is also a ‘skip,’ which is the person that strategizes for the team and tells others where they want the rocks to go. The skips throw their rocks last and then the vice throws third. Then there is also the second who throws second and finally the lead which throws first.”

This complex rule system with all the different positions (combined with the fact that to be successful in curling one must be very patient and skillful) can make curling challenging for an average person. After signing up to take a curling lesson, senior Chloe Gaither is familiar now with that fact.

“I think it’s a hard sport to master because there’s a lot of stuff that goes into it,” Gaither said. “You have to be able to know how to throw at the perfect speed and how to know when to stop sweeping to make the rock slow down. There’s a lot of stuff that goes into it that I think a lot of people don’t understand. I think it’s a pretty technically challenging sport.”

While curling is an officially recognized Olympic sport, it’s one of the least popular sports recreationally with just an estimated 25,000 curlers registered across 185 nationally recognized clubs. Moore is a part of that 25,000.

“I got into it in seventh grade [when I lived in Michigan] because my science teacher told me he has a curling club and invited me and the entire class to go,” Moore said. “But only a few people in class, including me, went. In Michigan, I used to practice every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. But in St. Louis, there isn’t really much of a curling scene so I can only go on Saturdays.”

While the curling community isn’t as prevalent here in St. Louis, this hasn’t stopped Moore from curling regularly, even against some more unlikely opponents.

“When I first started out, I was just playing against people who were usually middle-aged or people in their 30s,” Moore said.

Curling facts:

The most unlikely opponent being Moore’s own father, who has a background in curling from when he was younger and still competes often to this day.

“He [my father] plays on a different team, but usually in the same leagues as I do. So sometimes we get to play against each other or other days we play against different teams but see each other on the ice,” said Moore.

Curling has strengthened Moore’s relationship with her father, as they have been able to bond, learn from each other and keep each other competitive.

“Curling is a really collaborative and friendly sport,” Moore said. “So whenever I was [playing] with my dad, it helped us communicate with each other better. We had a lot of fun playing and practicing with each other.”

While Moore originally got into curling mainly for the simple enjoyment of the sport, over the years, she has learned life lessons through curling that she can apply to her life off the ice.

“[I learned about] having to be alright with failure, mess ups and things that just don’t go the way that you wanted them to go,” Moore said. “Being able to adapt and not make such a big deal out of something not going your way is a really good life lesson [I learned] because it will happen a lot.”