The Game is played between two four-member teams who use stones with different colored handles. Each game consists of ten ends, which are similar to innings in baseball. During an end, each team member alternates throwing stones toward a circular target area, called the house, the center of which is approximately 93 feet away.

Only one team scores points per end. The team with their stones closest to the center of the target area, called the button, gets one point for each stone between the button and the opposing teams nearest stone. After each end is completed, play is switched to the house at the other end of the sheet.

Each curling stone is made of pure granite, a very hard stone, that is highly polished. The stones are fairly uniform in size and shape with a maximum weight of 44 lbs., a circumference of 36 in., and a minimum height of 4.5 in. The stone is concave on the bottom, which allows the stone to slide down the ice and curl more than if it had a flat surface. A plastic handle is bolted onto every stone in order to deliver and release it.

I know this sort of thing because I was steeped in the ways of academe during every single day of my seven-and-a-half year undergraduate career.

        World War I Poster

(AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

(Reuters Photo: Andy Clark) ____________________________________________________________________________________