Hollywood Curling

    While Los Angeles waits for its own NFL team, another less well-known sport is thriving. The city is home to Hollywood Curling League, one of just five clubs in California devoted to the Olympic ice sport. Dozens of So-Cal citizens head to the ice each week to curl.
    “I’m from Wisconsin, but it took me coming to California to learn how to curl,” said Hollywood Curling board member Ken Dethloff.
    Curling combines the physical movements of bowling with the strategy of chess. There’s no skating involved, so virtually anyone can pick up the basics. Hollywood Curling holds regular introductory sessions for beginners and organizes leagues for all levels, from novice to semi-professional.
    “It doesn’t take a whole lot to really pick up,” Hollywood Curling vice president Matt Gamboa said. “But you talk to guys who have been doing it for 30 to 40 years and they’ll tell you it takes a lifetime to master.”
    Curling is played with two teams of four, in a series of “ends,” like innings in baseball. Athletes take turns sliding 45-lb. discs called “stones” down the ice towards their target, a circle of colored rings called “the house.” One the stone is on its way, two players slide along in front of it sweeping the ice with brooms. This helps the stone travel further.  The closer your stones land to the house, the more points you get. And like other sports, the team with the most points wins.
    “When they call it chess on ice, it’s a really good comparison,” avid curler Marissa Messier said. “You really have to think because the best curlers are thinking five, six, seven shots ahead.”
    Like other team sports, curling is just as much about the camaraderie as anything else. Hollywood Curling president Larry Lieberman took it up with his wife Julie, because they had both bowled in college and were looking for a sport they could play side-by-side.
    “It’s one of the only sports where couples can play together,” Lieberman said. “And we even have families with children coming out to play.”
    Hollywood Curling usually sees an influx of new curlers after the Winter Olympics, where the sport enjoys something generous airtime and something of a cult following. Some just try it once, but for others it becomes, quite literally, a way of life.
    “I’ve played sports all my life, and there’s something about this particular sport that’s so friendly,” Messier said. “The friends that I’ve made and the people that I’ve met, I know I’ll have in my life forever.”