StarTalk Radio - #ICYMI - The Science of Curling, with Olympians Brad Gushue and Nina Roth

Episode Date: February 15, 2018

Slide down the ice with Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice as they investigate the surprising science of curling. Featuring author and curler Dean Gemmell, physicist John Eric Goff, 2018 Olympic curler Nina Roth, and 2006 gold medalist Brad Gushue. (Warning: Adult Language.)NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/science-curling-olympians-brad-gushue-nina-roth/ Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

I'm Gary O'Reilly and I'm Chuck Nice. This is Playing With Science. Today we are exploring the odd yet fun sport of curling or as we have decided to call it here science friction. Ah yes. It's a cool, cool cool cool sport cool cool sport and joining us to break down the physics of curling is our very own professor of physics at lynchbirds college virginia and author of gold medal physics professor eric goff which professor hey chaka gary how are you all doing? I'm doing great here. Yeah, you're good. Good to have you.

So let's just recap your fields of expertise, because we've got an hour. Yeah. My God. Soccer, cycling, Krav Maga, and you are a black belt karate. So any upstart student who's thinking of joining the Good Professors classes, don't mess about. So we definitely want to get into the physics of this sport that is so hypnotic i mean uh you're a fan of curling right yes i i never i've never played it uh we i've never even seen a curling uh venue anywhere where i've ever lived but some friends from canada

were visiting one time and got me kind of hooked during the Olympics. And I've been watching the last few Olympics where it's been in there and it's just, it's fascinating to watch. Absolutely. So apart from the strategy of placing guards outside the house, which it sounds rather sort of medieval, you know, you've got to place guards outside the castle and you're doing this and doing that. There's a lot of sweeping. You've got the ice and the surface of the ice, the rotation of the rock or the stone, whatever way you're going to call it yourself.

So from the physics point of view, how can you deconstruct the sport and explain what's going on? So this is not – the ice is not like in a hockey rink or a skating rink. This is not smooth ice. They try to make it as level as they possibly can. And then you'll have a person will come out with one of these little water squirters. And it has to be done very precisely. And you will get some very purified water put on the surface of the ice. And it will freeze into these little pebble shapes.

And then a machine will come out and cleave and cut off the tops of the domes on those little pebbles and it'll leave a pebble-shaped surface where you can, it actually lowers the friction. If you tried to slide one of these curling rocks on, say, an ice skating or a hockey rink, it would not go nearly as far. Really? So the surface is aiding the rotation of the stone itself? Well, I mean, I'm talking about just even straight line motion. And there'll be added friction on a much smoother and flatter piece of ice than there will be on this petted, pebbled surface that you have in a curling rink.

That's very interesting. That seems counterintuitive. You would think that, like, if you think about cobblestone streets, right, you throw something like anything on a flat surface or anything that has a flat bottom down a cobblestone street, it's not going to go as far because of the bumpiness. Have no controller. But this, you're saying that this kind of these little shaved pebbles or this shaved pebble surface actually causes that stone to go even further. And now, does the stone have to be a certain weight for that to happen? Because I know it's like 42 pounds. It's like a 42-pound granite rock that they're using.

Does the weight of the stone help that process along? Not so much with the weight, but I want you to keep in mind the stone bottom is not flat. If you've ever seen like an earthenware bowl, you have kind of an annulus-shaped, you know, a circular-shaped piece of the granite that's going to be touching the surface of the ice. This is not flat. If it was flat, it would have even more friction. So the actual curling, the spinning of the stone, is happening on this circle-shaped piece of contact with the ice. It's not, you know, completely flat like a, you know, circular cross-section on there. Ah, okay. That's very cool. What sort of speeds do we achieve when they start to launch these stones down the ice?

So, they're thrown pretty slow. I mean, you're looking at something only going about a few meters per second, maybe six or seven miles an hour at most. So they're released with a rotation. Maybe you turn one to four times on the way down. But the point is that the stone itself is released very gently from right behind the hog line. And why do they scream so much And why do they scream so much? Why do they scream so much? There seems to be a lot of yelling going on there. Let's take it from start to finish.

You have four players on a team. They're each going to throw two of these stones, and you've got four on the other team. So you're looking at 16 stones are going to be eventually thrown down toward the house, which is the big bullseye where you want to get, you know, as many stones close to the button as possible. So you get the first person that's going to come down there. The first, you know, person is basically looking at kind of an empty house. So that person's going to be doing what's called a draw shot. And they're trying to place the stone somewhere in that bullseye area in that house. So the person's going to elevate a little bit up into this, what's called the hack. And

these are kind of like in a sprinting starting gate where you've got the foot protector, you know, back there to keep you from slipping. Like starting blocks. Yeah. So you raise up your body, you got the rock on the ice, and then you're going to start sliding with it. So as you raise your body and push down, when you come out of the hack, you're going to create a little bit of momentum and get a little force from that hack, like the starting block. And then you start pushing the stone down and you've been given a target. Typically, the best player, the skip, is down on the other side with a broom

held down as a target. So you've kind of lined up with that target. You got the stone rolling and you're either going to give it a very slight clockwise or a very slight counterclockwise turn depending on what's necessary. And the lead, the first person who's going to go is going to try to draw the shot in there.

Now, the two with the brooms, they're going to be given instructions from the skip and even from the person who's released the curling stone. They're going to be screaming at them, letting them know, is this thing going too fast? Is it heavy, as they call it? Is it going too slow or light? Does it need to curl more or less? And the thing is, if they start sweeping, that's actually going to reduce the amount of curl, but it's going to make it go faster. So the idea is, if they need to get the curling stone to

move a little bit quicker, get into the house, they need to sweep furiously. If it looks like it's already going too fast, they're not going to sweep it. Now, as the sweeping takes place, you're looking at an ice rink that's about five degrees below Celsius, which is something like 23 degrees Fahrenheit. And if you start sweeping vigorously, you start getting that close to the melting point and even if you don't melt the ice you warm it and by warming it you kind of soften it slightly which is actually going to reduce the friction which is why it can go a little bit faster and they don't have to sweep it very much because i told you you only have kind of a bowl ring shape contact with the ice.

So they're just doing these little short sweeps and they got to be careful not to touch the stone. And then the stone, of course, can land down in there. Then the other team goes and then the seconds come up and they might do kind of a, what's called a guard shot where they're going to hit the rock and they're going to lay it up a little short and try to block the house for the other team to come up. Then the thirds come up and they hit it stronger and they try to take out the stones. And then you get the skip coming up last, who's going to try to get the big point in the score there with the last shot. So the idea is to something called the hammer. Yeah, that's the last shot. That's the last shot. So the last shot shot. That's the 16th one, yeah.

So the last shot is really kind of the most important because what you want to do is have your last shot kind of be in that bullseye or closest to that bullseye, that pin area, because then you win, right? Yeah. The idea is you get in the – whoever gets closer to the button is going to be the winner for that particular end, as they call it. Yeah, but then you have that guy who does like the 10-pin bowling, just comes in and just smashes everything out of the house and sees if that gamble pays off. So there's got to be physics involved in that kind of thing because you've got that Newton's laws in place because it deflects, it comes back, or it sort of hits and bumps.

So what's happening with that? How do we explain that sort of science? So if you've ever done billiards or visited your grandma and done some shuffleboard or something like that. Well, we just had Dean Gemmell on. Please don't call it shuffleboard. Because the reply doesn't work so well. He'll have a big one-finger salute for you if you call it shuffleboard.

Okay. All right. But anyway, the examples. Go ahead. That's what my grandma in Florida calls it. So that's what I was calling it. Good. But anyway, you got the same kind of trajectories that you're going to have to play.

And sometimes there's what's called a drag effect. You get a couple of the stones that can actually start sticking together. And what will happen there is that you'll get a little bit of the ice will get up there and kind of melt on the collision surface. And once a couple of stones will stick together, the ice will refreeze and they'll be stuck. And you could actually hit one, break apart the other one on the back and set it off in kind of a crazy angle. It's some really interesting physics. It's called a drag effect. It doesn't have anything to do with air drag. So there really is, when they call it chess on ice, there's a lot more going on than what is apparent to the eye

during this competition. That's right. And if you could get even more than one of your stones or, you know, the rocks closer to the button, then you've got even more points you could score in a given end. You can score for however many of the rocks that you get close to that center of the bullseye compared to the team you're playing against. That's cool. Do you know anything about the shoes? Because one, aside from them being so incredibly fashionable, is there anything special about these what look to be orthopedic shoes, but clearly they have special bottoms on them to do something while they're sliding, while they're sweeping? Do you know anything about the footwear? while they're sliding, while they're sweeping. Do you know anything about the footwear? Well, I know when you go to, I know in Canada, my colleagues would tell me when you go into one of the rinks and you want to try this for the first time, you can rent one of these covers that you put over just a normal tennis shoe. And it's got a very smooth, slightly roughened surface, but it's fairly smooth to slip on the ice.

And you put one on one foot. So if I was going to be right-handed and I was going to try releasing the curling stone, I would put it on my left foot. And there's even a technique for how you actually get onto the ice. You know, you've got a shoe that's got a little bit more grip that you want to support yourself and then you put your slippery foot down. You've also got a broom to give you kind of this added point of contact. And when you slide on that front foot, that shoe covering is what's going to enable you to slide. Now, when you're brooming it, you don't want to be sliding so much. You want to have a little bit more grip with those shoes. Gotcha.

So when you curl, Chuck, you've got to get on the ice on the good foot. Oh! There you go. Hey! Ow! Ow! Good foot. Okay.

Oh, man. That's our musical instrument. Yeah, that's our musical instrument. Right. Hey, Eric, man, thanks so much for the great, great physics behind curling. I mean, I think as the Olympics, it's becoming probably one of the most popular Olympic sports. No, it's not something that's on your radar. Then once you get into it, it's like, I like this.

Yeah. This is cool. This is really cool. It's like once you start watching, you just can't stop. So I've got to give you a real demo real quick. Okay. You've got to try this. And the idea came to me at lunch today with a colleague because he was asking me what we were going to talk about.

And I was trying to explain the actual curling, why this thing curls. It can curl up to one to three feet or something during this 125-foot trek down the ice. And if you've got a glass, I'm showing you a glass here. You turn it upside down. And the bottom has a shape here that's going to be kind of like the surface of the curling stone. It's going to touch the ice. Now slide this on a table and give it a rotation and see if you can predict which way it's going to bend when it slides across the table. And when I did this, it was lucky. It was right before the waiter brought us water to fill it,

and he wondered what I was doing with his glass. But I pushed this thing across the table, and my colleague guesses the wrong direction. So if you're looking down on the glass and it's spinning, say, counterclockwise, he thought it would go to my left and it actually goes to the right and the reason is the front surface of the glass is slightly pushed down more than the back and if you're pushing on the table in one direction the table's got to push on the other so the push is easily explained it goes in the opposite direction you might think right that that that type of physics is easy we have not reached a consensus on why a curling rock curls. There are a couple of competing theories that are out there, whether you're actually scratching the pebbles and that's altering the friction or whether you have kind of an asymmetric melting that takes place based on the fact that the sides of the stone are moving at different speeds.

of the stone are moving at different speeds. So it actually, if you rotate it counterclockwise from above, it'll go to the left and clockwise from above, it'll go to the right. That's opposite what'll happen if you just slide this rotating glass across your table. That's fascinating. Great curling mystery. Great curling mystery and still yet to be solved. Well, you know, I'm pretty sure... It's an open question. That's right. I'm telling you this much. If you keep working on it, I'm pretty sure it's an open question. That's right. I'm telling you this much. If you keep working on it, I'm sure you're going to come up with an answer. And if you're a young member of the household listening to the good professor and think that's a great idea, I'll go and get the glasses. Please ask the homeowner's permission first. Yeah. You start

sending those glasses across the table and off the end. Yeah. Let me just tell you what Gary really means. Don't try this at home. Alright, kids? No. Nicely put. Thank you, Professor. Always a pleasure to have you on Playing With Science. And when we're back, back with a champion. That's right. Just any champion. That's right. But a former Olympic

gold medalist. Winning curler. From Team Canada, Brad, Gushaw will be our guest, so stick around. We'll be back shortly. Welcome back. I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Dice. And this is Playing With Science, and today

as you well know, we're exploring the fascinating world of curling. Basic physics broken down, and then a little bit more from the professor Eric Goff, which I think took us all to school. But let's find out what it's like to be at the very top of your game. Not just a former Olympic gold medalist,

but reigning world champion from Team Canada, Brad Gachoux. Hey, Brad. What first got you into curling? Because it's not the big sport that you always imagine you would gravitate towards, but there's obviously a very good reason why you did. Well, in Canada, it's a huge sport. Next to hockey, it's the biggest sport.

It's on TV all the time. But for me, what really drew me to the game was the strategy part and outthink your opponent. You know, in elementary school, I used to play chess and i used to love that and really curling his chess on ice and and if you play just as good as your opponent but you outthink him and outmaneuver him you can win the game and i love that aspect as long as as well as the physicality of it sweeping part the touch in the field the handeye coordination, and then you throw in that mental part of it, I think, is really what drew me to the game. So when you say it's chess on ice, you know, in chess, there are several different opening moves.

From a strategy standpoint, do you have the same thing in curling? Absolutely. It really depends on the score in the end. At our level, certainly everybody's kind of aware of those first first few moves and and and the difference with curling the chest is there's so many variables and the rock can finish in so many different spots that there's almost an infinite number of different possibilities and you always get in situations that you've never faced before uh but that's where your creativity and the ability to think through and think a couple shots ahead if we do this

perfect and then they do this perfect then we're going to be in this situation uh and that's what i like about it i think i have the ability to maybe look ahead uh more shots than my opponents obviously there's others that are are very good at it but uh most teams that we play i feel like we have an advantage from a strategic standpoint okay so for those of you that do have access to the visuals here team gushu and you're the leader you're the skip yeah so this in game management seems to be the be all and end all of curling that you're able to not just know that you you can execute technically the shots you need to but what shots are going to be coming next what shots your opponent's going to be able to do the technical ability of your opponents and then it just goes from there and there and there it's as you say it does seem a

lot like chess or there's a lot like i gotta stick this round thing with a handle looks like i don't know what it looks like it's going down there down there. Right. And that's just the beginning. Yeah. The very beginning. So let me ask you this. If you're facing a guy or another team, and on that team is a player who is known for being able to take the

stone and just put it on the button. Like, that's his forte. Like, this guy, every time he comes up boom he could put that stone right on the button uh what does that do to you uh in your turn in terms of your strategy uh it changes a lot because we can really manipulate the game in such a way that we can force that player to maybe play more hits and maybe get away from those field shots and in the same sort of thing we have two different turns or two different rotations on the rock

obviously clockwise and counterclockwise and and a lot of players have a preference in which turn that they throw and and you know from an analytical standpoint excuse me they actually percentage wise are much better with one turn than the other so before we go into a game against some of those teams we'll analyze that and really try and force them to play the turn or the rotation that they're weaker at um so as a skip there's there's so many different levels and so many different things you could do to exploit your opponents and and really get at their weakness uh but really at our level i we're you know we're the number one ranked team in the world if we play our game and we play as good as we can then we really don't have to to go down those routes of exploiting those weaknesses but it is another tool that we have in the toolbox if if our game is a little

bit off we can try and and get the other team to play probably a little bit below where they usually play okay wow we said you were olympicist back in 2006. Yeah. Let's be fair, you are reigning world champion, aren't you? Yes. Yeah. Right now, you're the world champs, right? So right now, you're sitting there all top of the pile. Do you ever get to the position where you don't have to worry about your opponents because your team's game is so strong you just go out and play your game dominate curling we have so many top teams here in canada that for us we went from 2006 when we won the olympics to 2017 when we won the worlds and really we won events in between but we didn't win one of the big championships being the world championships

or the olympics so there's a lot of really good teams and and as i said there's so many variables to to winning that sometimes you can play really good and just not win uh but to answer your question uh do we feel like we can just go out there and play our game there's certain weeks of the year when we're we're in that zone and we're feeling good and all four guys are rolling yeah we just go out there and we don't worry about what our opponent is doing we just play our game and we had one of those runs at the world championship last year where uh for 13 games we won all 13 of them and never came down to last shot we were just we were all at our peak and and uh it was a lot of fun those don't happen very often but when you have those moments in those weeks you just you just let it ride hey can you help me out it must be an amazing thing just to

be sat in that zone. It's not a comfort zone. It is a special zone. And then to be able to realize that, yeah, this doesn't happen all the time. No, it doesn't. Incredible. Hey, help me out with something technical here. Sure.

So I was watching some curling just to prepare for this show. And by the way, probably the most hypnotic sport I've ever encountered in my life. I don't know what it is. Once you start watching, you just ever encountered in my life. I don't know what it is. Once you start watching, you just can't stop watching. I don't know what it is. But what I noticed was on the push off from the hacks, it seems as though when you're in that lunge position that you're not using your arm to propel the stone. It looks like you're just using the arm to aim the stone and all the propulsion comes from your legs. Can you break down the anatomy of the push and how that happens?

That's a great question. It really is the legs. And at the top level, to get that feel, me personally, I feel like the big muscles are able to fine-tune that. When you get into the little hands and finger muscles and trying to shove a rock, there's a lot of variability in what you could do. When you use your muscles, your leg muscles, which are obviously some of the biggest muscles in your body, you can control it a whole lot better. We kind of call the push-off from the hack with the leg. That's where you get your speed the hand and the release is a little bit of fine tuning so the time from when we kick to when we release is usually around four seconds so if we get out kick out during those four seconds we feel

like we didn't quite kick hard enough we could add a little bit with our hand um obviously the other way if we kick a little too hard we can just maybe just pull back on it or hold onto it for, for a millisecond or a 10th of a second longer and, and get that correct weight. So, uh, the hand and the arm is really for fine tuning. There are some players that really have a big extension, uh, and that really comes down to timing. And there's a lot of different ways to get the rock to where you want, similar to golf. You know, you look at Jim Furyk swing versus Tiger woods. They're completely different, but both of rock to where you want, similar to golf. You know, you look at Jim Furyk's swing versus Tiger Woods. They're completely different, but both of them can go out and shoot 65.

Similar in curling. There's a lot of different ways to throw the rock, but it really comes down to practicing and honing your skill and getting that fine-tuned feel. Has anyone come along and done things legitimately where you say, that's changed the game? Is there a Michaelael jordan of curling there you go um maybe not the skill level of michael jordan where he was so much better than

other athletes or tiger golf we really haven't had one of those players come along in a long time um kevin martin would probably be one but he's been retired now for um for four or five years uh he would probably be the one that i could think about the most but he's been retired now for four or five years. He would probably be the one that I could think about the most. But there's been teams that have done different things that have really changed the game. Our team, I'll give you an example. A couple of years ago, we had these very abrasive brooms, very firm brooms. And they are actually a little bit harder than the ice. So when you swept, you were actually scratching the ice.

a little bit harder than the ice so when you swept you were actually scratching the ice okay we picked up on it way before all the other teams and and figured out that if we swept on one side of the rock versus the other we could actually get the rock to curl or go straight and we could almost it was almost like a joystick going down the ice we can control it and we were making these super precise shots look so easy um and we were doing it with one sweeper so one on each side one and one on one one on the other and we were mocked for six eight weeks while we were doing this because it was so different than everybody else but then when they figured out what we could do everybody caught on and it's since that point we've actually had to rein in the brooms and the brooms are softer now and the material is it's much smoother and softer than the ice so now when we put the pressure on we can't scratch the ice like we used to

wow wow that's very cool man i i'm just fascinated by how much there is to this sport and at first glance it looks like people shoving rocks down the ice and then when you get into this on any level, when you scratch the surface, excuse me, yeah, I did that. When you scratch the surface, man, this thing unfolds and becomes like just a whole world within itself. Yeah, thank you. There's infinite ways to go. And I could give you a number of other examples like that where you know we're still learning and the whole sport is still learning um the fact that nobody picked up on that scratching for the last you know 30 years that we've been using broom similar to this is is really amazing but all it took was a broom that was just a little bit harder for for us to make it um you know obvious to everybody uh but there's so many little nuances to the game. And really the difference between being the 10th best in the world and the

first number one is, is so minute. And it's really is just comes down to almost intangible things, you know, communication out on the ice, learning a little bit more about the rocks and the ice. And that's something I try to do is talk to the ice makers about the rocks that we're using about the ice and how he's preparing it to see if I can gain anything from that. And you look for every little advantage. Very cool. Just like any other sport, right?

Yep. Looking for that legal advantage. Looking for the legal advantage. Brad Gushue, thank you so much for your time and the very best of luck for you and Team Canada. Yeah, man. South Korea in Pyeongchang. Is that correct? Have I pronounced that name as well? That is correct.

Our team will be at the Olympics this year. We lost out in our Olympic trials. No. Yeah. Recount. What? We'll send you anyway. Kui going.

And they're really good. They're going to go in as the gold medal favorites along with Team Sweden. And wish those guys all the best of luck. And I'm sure you'll see Canada on the podium in some way, shape or form. Well, you know I was going to root for Canada but now that you're not going to be there, USA!

USA! USA! It won't be the same without the world champion, Brad. Just won't be the same without you, sir. Well, the US team are great. They're a bunch of buddies of our but buddies of our sorry uh matt hamilton john schuster those guys are are great they're gonna have a good chance to win a medal and if they play well they'll be right there at the end of the week

and and from from my perspective obviously i'm cheering for canada and kevin cooey but it'd be wonderful to see the united states do well and try and grow this sport a little bit more down there. There you go, man. Hey, man. Well, thanks so much for joining us. Brilliant. Guys, thanks for having me.

The camaraderie is exceptional, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. You know, this is the kind of sport where, yeah, you want to crush your opponent, but then you want to have a beer with them afterwards. It seems to be a real, you know, they self-manage. They're all good on the ice.

There doesn't seem to be too many problems between teams. And you could feel that the respect is there. There's no difficulty with getting on with all the other guys. I think it's because it's so hard to cheat at the ice. There doesn't seem to be too many problems between teams. And you could feel that the respect is there. There's no difficulty with getting on with all the other guys. I think it's because it's so hard to cheat at the game.

It's just like, you know what, you have to have respect for your opponent, you know, because you can't have like a dirty player. No.

Yeah. But you can have dirty ice. Yeah, mama. Oh, dear. You know what, this is probably a perfect time

to take a break. I'm going to need it just to recover. Thank you so much to Brad Gashue. We will have Nina Roth with us when we get back. So more curling, stick around, and I'll try and clean up Chuck before we come back. Welcome back. I'm Gary O'Reilly. And I'm Chuck Nice. And this is Still Playing with Science. Yes, it is. And today we are talking about curling.

But you know that because you've been with us since the beginning. And joining us now is Nina Roth, skip of the American women's team at the 2018 Winter Olympics. Yeah, Nina, how are you? Welcome. Thank you. Hey, Nina. Welcome. So how does an American get involved in curling? It's not quite, it's more Canada than USA. So what dragged you into this sport? Yeah, it's definitely more big in the Midwest. So I'm from Madison, Wisconsin. The Madison Curling Club just happens to be really close to my house. So my family kind of just grew up in curling.

That's very cool. You will notice for those who are listening to the podcast, you cannot see this. But Nina, I hope that you like my headgear right here. I'm actually wearing a curling stone as a hat. It's very fetching. Yeah, man. It is. It is hat. It's very fetching. Yeah, man. It is just, it's the look. I am now a stonehead. I'm about it. I'm about it.

So let me ask you this. Because it would appear that men and women can compete together on the same team, but if I'm not mistaken, they don't do that in competition. And why is that? Yeah, well, they have men's teams

and they have women's teams. This year, they're starting mixed doubles teams. So it's two people, not four. And it's a man and a woman. And they throw less stones. I actually just got done practicing with the U.S. team,

the Hamilton and Hamilton. Sweet. Oh, really? Yeah. Very cool. They're right here. Very cool. This is Matt Hamilton.

Hey, Matt Hamilton. Hey, Matt Hamilton. All right. Good luck, sir. Good luck to you. So it's a huge responsibility to be representing your country at the Olympics. And do you find that you incorporate any physics or science when it comes to making your strategy for the sport? Definitely, we have to look at angles.

So we're constantly looking for different advantages when we're playing um so looking at angles and trying to make those offensive choices to get the stones in the right spots that we need them how long does it take you personally to master all of the techniques required to rise to the very top of curling? I'm still working on perfecting those techniques. You know, you always got to brush up on things and make sure that it's on point. So now aside from practice, how do you prepare for a curling match? Are there any specific like mental gymnastics that you have to perform or is there any physical regimen that you must take that must take place in order for you to be ready for a match? Yeah, we do work with a sports psychologist. So she's helped us work on our mental prep.

We do a lot of visualization. So in preparation for the Games in particular, I've been visualizing the arena, trying to go through the motions of what it's going to feel like to be playing at the Olympic Village and those kind of things. We also do a lot of physical training. So it's a lot of strength training, so Olympic lifting and things like that, and then cardio days as well, since we're sweeping and and need that endurance

yeah you mentioned the stadium how do you modify change or don't change your game as regards to the different venues that you find yourself competing in well a lot of times the ice will curl more or less so the rock is moving more or less at the end. Or it can be faster or slower. So I kind of have to change my game based on those ice conditions. So when we get to an event, generally we get like an hour practice on all the sheets. And so we will kind of test things out and throw some shots, see what we are capable of doing, how much we're getting those rocks to curl. And then I kind of adjust my strategy based on that.

You don't get to know prior to arrival what you can expect. You have to actually physically get down on the sheet and find out. Yes, 100 percent. So when you're down on the sheet, I see I see the players actually reading the ice the way like a golfer reads the green, like the putting green. What are you looking for? Because it just looks like ice to us at home. What are you guys looking for? Yeah, you can't really judge how much, what the ice is doing based on just looking at it.

You need to watch a rock come down the ice and curl. So I'm looking at break points is the main thing. So the point at which the rock starts to make that move, because I need to know what that point is if I'm trying to get around another stone to tap something out. Like if there's a guard or a rock in the front of the house, and then I'm trying to hit something back here I need to know when it's curling so that I can wrap around that top rock to get the back one do you get to use your own particular stones or are you is everybody given new stones to perform

with in the Olympics the stones will be at the Olympics, so nobody's used them before. They're the Olympic stones, so everyone has the same set. Oh, that's pretty cool. Are you aware of that sort of stone? Because certain stones are made from certain different types of granite and therefore might perform slightly different. Do you get to know what kind of stones you will be working with? Or do they just kind of put it on you at the last minute

and let you practice and then you're like, okay, this is it. Yeah, we just practice with them. Generally, they're all from, all curling stones are from two quarries in Scotland. So they're generally similar. The main difference in stones is the running surface. So if you flip up a stone, the running surface is actually a circle so that the rock is like the whole bottom of the rock isn't just sitting on the ice.

It's not flat. Yeah, right. It's just one circle. Exactly. Nice. There you go. I knew you were going to say that. So I bought a visual aid.

I love it. So, yeah. So that must be um pretty cool that there's only two quarries is that all they do is make curling stones i think one of them's a remote island in scotland where they are and it's now a nature reserve so you can't just walk in blow up half of an island and then walk out with the granite. They have to do it in one time, take as much granite as they can, walk out and then come back however many years later. So there's a finite amount of granite.

And plus you don't want to disturb the wildlife. You upset them. So these are very special stones that you're dealing with here. The sport is just so, like, there's so many layers to this sport. Like, you would never, ever, ever think that there is as much to curling as there is. So what actually is it about this sport that, because you seem to be very passionate, what is it about it that you like the absolute most? I like most the strategy because it's always

evolving always changing there's always something i can learn you know no game is just exactly like the one you game played before so it's always changing and always be you always got to be on your game sweet it's funny we spoke to a couple of curlers and they said basically the same thing apart from getting to slide around on the ice and have lots of fun it was the strategizing yeah the fact that they could tear an opponent apart through not just technical ability but out thinking them getting three two however many moves, knowing how good they were. And it was a sport that takes place as much in the mind as it does on the ice. Yep.

So when you talk about strategy, I mean, with what Gary just said, it reminds, I was reading about this thing, it's like a, I don't know if it's a rare play or not, but a raise takeout or a run back, and there's multiple stones being popped. And it looks like luck when you see it played out. But you're saying that from a strategy standpoint,

these are things that you guys are actually practicing. And do you do that in practice? Do you take and set up situations like, all right, if this happens, let's try to execute that. Like you do that in football, basketball. Do you do the same thing like running plays? Do you guys do that? Yeah. Yeah. We'll say we'll set a score. We'll be like, so this this color has last rock advantage and we're down by two points and it's the end of the game. So we need to score two points. Uh, how are we gonna mathematically get those points and, um, find the advantages against the other team? That's pretty, I gotta tell you, I love this sport. Oh no, then I would end up loving curling seriously this sport is fascinating

I think Nina did I think Nina knew that you would come out of this interview going I love this sport you know what like the NBA that used to be their saying I love this game now you guys can say that curling I love this game well Nina thank you

it's an absolute pleasure and we wish you and the whole team USA the very best of luck USA USA go ahead and rock it

thank you so much it's not quite the same if I say it but I do wish you all the very best indeed so great luck good luck thank you

thank you very much take care Nina thank you wow man yeah who's going to be up all night watching curling I'm always up all night watching curling? Yeah. I'm

always up all night watching curling during the Olympics. I might just go home and watch it tonight though. Yeah. You're just going to have reruns. Exactly. Hey, what are you watching? Yeah. Well, yeah, I kind of DVR'd some curling and I'm, I'm just going to, instead of Netflix and chill, I'm going to curl and chill. I'm going to curl and chill, babe. But what was interesting was Professor Eric Goff said, we're not quite sure exactly what's happening. Right. The physics is not really figured out yet. Well, they've been curling since the 16th century.

Surely someone must, because the laws of physics haven't changed. Yeah. Not since I last looked. Why haven't they worked it out? Yeah. Well, yeah. Give it a few more months right?

maybe after the Olympics everyone will get so fascinated by it there'll be a government think tank yeah and they'll solve this yeah we've had a few hundred years you know what's a few more months?

we'll figure it out what a fabulous show and if you didn't like curling before I know you do now I've been Gary O'Reilly and I'm still Chuck Nice and this has been Playing With Science. See you all next time.