This article appeared in The Star-Ledger on Feb. 2, 2010
Alexandra Pais/For The Star-Ledger
Jim Morton, left, and Ed Klug sweep the path of the rock during a curling game at the Plainfield Curling Club in South Plainfield on Jan. 28.
SOUTH PLAINFIELD -- It was like most winter nights at the little indoor ice rink here. About a dozen men and women in winter jackets and fleece pullovers finished playing their obscure sport and headed to the lobby for a traditional post-game beer.
But on this night, they were greeted by a visitor with a ballpoint pen and a reporter’s notebook.
At the Plainfield Curling Club, that can only mean one thing: 2010 is a Winter Olympics year.
"Every four years, you guys show up," former club president Don Baird tells the guest. "We’re used to the drill."
Whenever the Winter Olympics roll around — as they will starting next Friday in Vancouver — newspaper reporters and TV film crews stop by the lodge-like building tucked in an industrial park off Route 287 in South Plainfield.
Even Stephen Colbert paid a visit last month.
The Plainfield Curling Club is the only curling club in New Jersey, drawing more than 150 members from across the state.
And the Olympics are the only time most people in the U.S. ever see the sport, which has been compared to everything from bocce to shuffleboard to bowling — on ice.
"It’s the only time it’s on TV," Baird said. "Americans don’t believe it’s a sport unless it’s on TV."
CURLING
That’s what made the last Olympics so important. Curling — invented in Scotland 500 years ago and a pastime second to hockey in Canada — didn’t become an Olympic medal sport until 1998. And if it was on TV at all, it was only on in the wee hours of the morning.
But curling hit the prime time schedule at the 2006 Games in Torino, Italy. And the U.S. men’s team took home the bronze medal.
"That was the highwater mark," said Dean Gemmell, president of the Plainfield Curling Club.
The 47-year-old club holds an open house every year, and about 60 to 100 people usually stop by to check out the sport. But in 2006, more than 300 attended.
"When people see it on TV, they Google ‘Curling New Jersey’ and find our place," Gemmell said.
So do the media, who descend upon the club to talk about a sport where captains are called skips and beer is more common than Gatorade.
Last month, Colbert, the Comedy Central star, stopped by to film a segment with the U.S. men’s curling team. Colbert — who, in a stunt, is trying to make the roster of any U.S. Olympic team he can — got a curling lesson and challenged the U.S. captain to a game.
"Passing a stone never felt so good," Colbert said in the segment, which aired two weeks ago.
Gemmell, a Short Hills resident who once played on a junior national team in his native Canada, said curling is slated to be in prime time again this Olympics. And the South Plainfield club scheduled its next open house for Feb. 28, right after the Games are over.
Visit the club, and the members will talk about the rules of the sport — where players push a 42-pound granite stone called a "rock" down a 150-foot chute of ice, trying to place the stone in a bulls-eye target called a "house." As the "rock" glides down the ice, a pair of players with brooms furiously sweep the surface to guide the shot. The team that places one of its four rocks closest to the middle ring — or "button" — scores a point.
The members are also quick to tell you curling is quite a workout — full of vigorous 30-second intervals of sweeping.
Just don’t say curling is too much a novelty to be part of the Olympics.
"If ice dancing is an Olympic sport," Gemmell said, "curling is an Olympic sport."