Rocks for Jocks

A couple hundred years ago, a bunch of hardy Scots got together and decided to do something fun with all the ice, rocks and sticks surrounding them. It was in this land of bagpipes and plaid kilts that the sport of curling was born. Now, with its inclusion in the 2002 Winter Olympics and the resulting TV-inspired fan base, curling is slowly moving beyond the categorical limits of hairstyling and gift-wrapping and into the sports vocabulary of even non-Canadians.

Harvard has some of its own exceptional curlers, among them third-year Law School student and Ec 10 TF Charles P. Bronowski. Originally a collegiate hockey player at Rutgers University, Bronowski started curling four years ago. He helped Harvard’s Curling Club place third in the College Nationals two years ago and is currently a member of the Broomstones Club, which curls five times a week in Whaling, Mass.

True to its ancient beginnings, curling remains a game of rocks, ice, special brooms and strategy. The sport is played between two teams of four that slide 42-pound granite rocks down a 140-by-15 foot sheet of ice toward a target. “It is kind of like chess on ice,” Bronowski says. “You basically want your rock closest to the dot, but you have to think three or four rocks in advance because your rock can be knocked out.”

Naturally, players do not throw this huge projectile across the ice, but rather slide it from a crouched-down starting position that involves sliding on one foot and somehow not falling over. As Bronowski more elegantly explains, the move looks kind of like an eagle soaring. Players can alter the direction of the rock by curling their wrist left or right, while their teammates assist as well by sweeping the ice in front of the traveling rock for a nice, smooth ride.

Curling at Harvard actually began one year before Bronowski’s arrival, when then-first-year Emma P. Wendt ’03, “disappointed that there was no opportunity to curl at Harvard,” started the Curling Club. A native of Nova Scotia who had curled for five years prior to coming to college, Wendt’s love for the sport led her to the Canadian Club of Boston, a local curling group. “It reminds me of home and the lingo and culture of the game brings up a lot of memories,” she says. This year the Curling Club joins up with the Canadian Club at the Brookline country club, where they curl together on a weekly basis during the winter season.

While Bronowski is no longer an official member of the Curling Club, the aspiring financial lawyer curls with the group occasionally and is optimistic about its rock-throwing potential. “They’re only a few years away from placing in nationals again,” he says.

The club will have to do it without him, though. Next year Bronowski will go from Harvard to a job at a Wall Street law firm. He has the job all lined up and he’s already narrowed down the neighborhood where he’d like to live. “Next to the curling club, of course,” he says.