This was Canada's first gold medal in curling. The team that represented the country was from a rink in St. John's, Newfoundland. The province was so excited and proud of their teams success of making it to the gold medal round that the Education Minister of Newfoundland and Labrador shut down schools early so kids could be home in time to watch the game! Brad Gushe(25), is the youngest to ever skip a Canadian Olympic curling team. For those of you unfamiliar with Curling, the skip is like the team captain, they're the ones to take the last shots for the team and they have the final call on all shots taken. The team was another example of Canada's collaboration with veteran's and a younger generation, the man throwing second for the team, Howard Russ, is 50.
The women's team hails from Calgary, Alberta. The amazing thing with this team...they won the bronze medal while battling stomach flus which forced them to toggle with shooting orders.
It is believed that Curling (often referred to as "chess on ice") was invented in Scotland. Each team has four players, each player gets 2 stones which they try to get as close to the center target as possible (target is called the house). The stones weight 44 pounds, the shooter slides down the ice with the stone and must release it before the hog line, from there the sweepers that control of the stone and slide it into the place the team has agreed upon.
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