The Spirit of Curling: “Curlers play to win but never to humble their opponents. A true curler would rather lose than win unfairly … the spirit of the game demands good sportsmanship, kindly feeling, and honorable conduct.”

You think Maine winters are bad? Consider 16th century Scotland. There were no big-screen televisions, no iPods, no Netflix. Forget central heat.

Cabin fever was so bad that the shivering Scots took to rolling stones around their frozen lochs (that’s not all that was frozen) and betting on the outcome.

Somewhere around year 1500, some McGregor or another started drawing circles on the ice. He bet the rival Ferguson clan that he could start at the other end of the loch and slide more rocks into the circle than they could. Just to make it sporting, he bet a barrel of scotch on the match.

Because “CSI: Miami” hadn’t even been invented yet, the new ice sport, which became known as curling, caught on like sliced bread, which had not been invented yet, either.

Curling has come a long way – indoors, since then.

By 1638, curling rivaled golf and archery in Scotland, according to “Hunters in the Snow” by Peter Breugel. By the 1800s, thousands of Scots competed in every parish in the country.

Emigrating Scots brought the sport around the (frozen) world, and the first curling club in North America was established in Montreal in 1807. Curling slid across the border into Michigan in 1832, where the Orchard Lake Curling Club became the first club in America.

Today, there are an estimated 1.5 million curlers in 35 nations and 15,000 curlers in more than 135 clubs in the United States. Supporters celebrated the addition of curling to the Winter Olympics in 1998. If you visited the Belfast Curling Club last weekend, the only curling club in Maine, it would become obvious that the sport is sliding along fairly well.

At the weekend Ben Ames Williams Bonspiel (league game), 16 teams (eight from Belfast area) of curlers of all ages from two countries and four states gathered in the Route 3 facility which features indoor ice, a meeting room and a very popular bar.

Casual observers remember the sport for the furious sweepers who precede the sliding stone, to (allegedly) influence the path of the stone toward the target.

“Let’s face it. Curling is the oddest sport in the world,” admitted BCC president Doug Coffin. Coffin got into the sport in 1980 when his real estate agent, a curler, suggested it as a good way to meet new people. “The best way to stop a conversation is to say you curl. They always ask what the broom is for. But [brooming] is the difference between doing well and not. It is hard to believe,

I know. In curling, if you move the stone a tenth of an inch, that is immense.”

The game is surprisingly complicated with elements of bowling, marbles, bocce, pool, baseball, even shuffleboard.

Valery Doody of Stockton Springs hates that.

A Texas import who “never heard of curling” until she came to Waldo County 10 years ago, said, “It’s nothing like shuffleboard. The ice is different every time you throw. The playing field is different every time. A single hair on the ice can change the path of the stone. There is a lot more strategy involved. It is nothing like shuffleboard.”

Sorry.

The curling teams are composed of four members – first stone, second stone, third mate and skip, or captain, who tells the other players where to aim in the inner circle. When the first stone competes, the second stone and third mate take orders from the skip on when and where to sweep in front of the sliding stone. Then the positions are switched. Each team member throws two stones per match.

The United States Curling Association explains that “the object of shooting is to get the rock to come to rest where the skip called for it (a draw) or to remove another stone (a takeout). Shooters must be accurate in three elements for a shot to be successful: They must deliver the rock toward the skip’s target line (the broom), give the stone the proper velocity (weight) and impart the proper turn on the handle so the rock curls in the proper direction.”

Any questions?

Like bowling, the player slides the object along the floor toward the distant target. Like marbles, the object is to hit the opponent’s object, move it from the circle and leave your object there, to get points. Like bocce, one team will knock another’s piece out of the scoring area. Like pool, careful planning for several shots in advance is required.

Like shuffleboard, well, never mind.

Each team has four turns with the object of leaving as many of their stones inside the circle, with as few of the opponents’ in the circle, as possible. Points are given for every stone inside the other team’s stones within the circle. Measurements are done very, very carefully.

Doody likes the game because “everyone can play and men have no advantage. It is a game of finesse and strategy, to control the stone at any given moment.”

It’s also a little like baseball, according to potter Jamie Oates of Belmont. The stone is propelled by its handle and always has a slight curve one way or the other, like a pitched baseball. Although some harbor the suspicion that the sweeping does nothing at all but keep the team members from going back to the bar, Oates swears the sweeping melts the ice in front of the sliding stone and either increases or decreases the curve. “More sweeping actually straightens out the curve. The warmer ice will make the stone slide straighter and faster. The skip will tell [the sweepers] to sweep or not, to control the spin.”

The ice is carefully “pebbled,” or resurfaced between each match with a special sprinkler.

For the noncurling doubters who question all that sweeping, we present Paul Mort, 77, of Falmouth, Mass., who has been curling for more than 30 years.

“The stone has a bottom rim of 5.5 inches. The stone is always thrown with a slight rotation. The sweeping will melt the ice in front of the stone, change the friction on the front edge of the rim and slow or speed up the rotation,” he said.

Mort is an MIT-trained physicist. Case closed.

Mort will complete at the World Curling Championships in Lowell, Mass., during the first week of April. More than 12 countries will complete at the event at the Tsongas Arena.

The 64 curlers at the Belfast event who paid the $50 entry fee were composed of men and women, carpenters and doctors, lawyers and teachers, Oates said. “It is a huge range of people at these events. It’s not about who is the best curler. It is a team sport. That’s what grabs them. We shake hands at the end of each match. You don’t see that in baseball or hockey.”

In addition, strict curling rules require that the winners buy the losers drinks. “So everyone wins,” said Liz Abelton of Falmouth, Mass.

In the Scottish tradition, the finalists of the Bonspeil are led onto the ice by a bagpiper.

The Belfast club was formed in 1959 and used an outdoor facility. The Belfast rink was the idea of Melvin Woods, who ran a sand and gravel company on Route 3. That is no accident.

When the rink was built in 1959, then expanded in 1962, volunteers would show up at the sand and gravel company to make 5,000 cement blocks for the adjoining structure. In the beginning there was just the enclosed rink and a small spectator area. Additions over the years have included an expanded spectator area, a dining room and last year, sophisticated overhead cameras which illustrate the state of the stones during the match.

Brenda Boulier, the granddaughter of founder Woods, said the club has expanded to 130 members. The upkeep of the building, which could cost $1 million to replace today, is funded by $225 membership fees, the Bonspiel and other events.

Jim Boulier, Brenda’s husband, said curling is undergoing a rebirth, thanks to the addition to the Olympics. Curling is much more popular in Canada and the upper Midwest but is growing in Maine, he said. “We had an open house last fall and got 20 new members. We are starting a youth league this year. It certainly is not dying. Some couples drift away when they have kids then drift back when the kids get older.”

The 42-pound stones are made of special granite and cost about $700 each. The club is required to have 16 stones on hand for the matches, or more than $11,000 in equipment.

Most curlers come to the sport by either an enthusiastic friend or an open house, said Abelton, a professional events planner. “I went to an open house five years ago and thought, ‘How hard can this be?’ You have a great time and meet so many people. I came to the Belfast event last year and found a nice atmosphere. The competition is great. We will bring four teams next year.

“There is competition, but it is not bitter. You never cheat to win,” she said.

For those sticklers who must have results, the Border Curling Club of Beebe, Quebec, composed of Canadian and Vermont curlers, took two of the three events, and the third went to the Broomstone Club of Wayland, Mass.

That’s not surprising, according to Coffin, the Belfast club president. “We are in a vast wasteland up here, far away from all of our competitors. We are at the end of the line with our nearest competitor in Saint John [New Brunswick]. We have some good curlers, but the skill level is so much higher on these clubs who compete against each other all the time.”

The winners got commemorative cups created by potter Oates.

The next bonspiel in Belfast will be for women’s teams on Feb. 10 and for men’s teams on Feb. 24.

As in every bonspiel, the winners will buy drinks. Does every curling club have to have a bar?

“I haven’t found a club without one yet,” Abelton said.

For more information about the Belfast Curling Club, call 338-9851 or visit www.belfastcurlingclub.org.

Belfast Curling Club member Jim Parker (above, left) slides a stone down the sheet as teammates Abbie Read (center) and Karen MacDonald prepare to sweep the ice.