Olympic Zone: Why you should learn how to curl

There’s a Winter Olympics sport that not not everyone understands, but most have heard about: curling.

The game made its way onto the Olympic scene in 1998. Since then, it’s quickly gained popularity.

Eventually, curling came to Central Oregon, when the Bend Curling Club opened its doors three years ago.

Since then, the club has slowly gained followers. Rich Peterson, the club’s marketing managerm said it’s not about winning, but about friendship.

“I tell you, I met the most wonderful people. I’m actually still curling with two of the guys I originally got signed up with,” Peterson said recently.

The club was established in 2015 by former club president Tom Pietrowski

“It’s been amazing. I knew curling in Bend was a perfect fit. It’s just a Bend sport,” Pietrowski said.

Curling is different from Central Oregon adventure activities. It involves sliding a heavy stone across ice and using brooms to direct the stone into the house at the end of the lane.

This unique sport has drawn players from all stages of life, including Mickey Freundlich, who spent her younger days curling on the East Coast.

“Talking about age, my husband and I are both the oldest ones associated. He just turned 80, and I’m not far behind him. It means that age is just a number. I feel younger than that and so does he,” Freundlich said.

And the club boasts curlers with all sorts of experience, said Mickey’s husband, Mike Freundlich.

“I came down as an instructor. People that had no clue what a stone looked like, they thought they threw it down. I said ‘Wait, you can’t lift a 42-pound stone and throw it. That doesn’t work,” Freundlich said.

In curling, all you need is a friendly smile and a firm handshake.

“The rules of curling show you need to be kind to one another and you need to be helpful, so it’s a really fun environment,” Peterson said.

Curling goes back to 16th-century Scotland, and a key part of the game has always been good sportsmanship, referred to as “the spirit of curling.”

That means teams are expected to congratulate opponents for good plays, withhold celebration, and in no way make negative comments.

“The name of the game — this is for fun,” Mike Freundlich said. “This is not for contracts, money or whatever. We have fun. We played our games, and then we went in and sat around a table, had a drink. It’s just socializing and, to me, that’s what curling is about.”

According to tradition, the winning team buys a round of drinks for the losing team. And that makes curling a very Bend sport indeed.