Have you ever gone curling? Curling is a sport where you roll a stone down the ice and aim for the middle of the house, the house is like the target. Our class went on a field trip to go curling recently and I think it was pretty fun going curling. In this post I will compare my school experience curling vs curling at the Ardsley Curling Club. I will also compare my expectations vs reality.

First, I’m going to compare my school experience curling to my experience at the curling club. One comparison is at school it was easier for me to get the stone to reach the house but at the curling club our team couldn’t get a single stone to reach the house. Another difference was at the curling club the stones were heavier than at school, making the stones harder to roll. When I first tried rolling the stone I thought how will I push this stone down the ice? but when I pushed the stone down the ice it was easier than I thought. It was still hard to get it all the way across the ice. At school we curled on the floor in the gym, but at the curling club we curled on ice. Curling on ice made the experience pretty different from curling on the floor. When we first entered the rink I remembered Mr. Borgia, my PE teacher said “ take off your gloves and try touching the ice” when I touched the ice it felt like there was some kind of goo on it but in reality it was just tiny bumps on the ice creating friction. I also noticed that at school the houses were way smaller than at the curling club which should make it easier to get the stone in the house but the stones were just too heavy and the houses were too far apart for our team. I remember one of the stones my friend, Nina rolled was like a centimeter away from reaching the house but it didn’t reach. I remember saying to my friend, Kayla who was sweeping with me “ we should have sweeped more and it would reach”.

Next, I’m going to compare my expectations to reality. I didn’t think that we would have to run while sweeping, but sometimes we ended up running . In my mind I thought the stone is going so fast we have to run? I also thought that we would get at least a couple stones into the house but we actually got none. Our team wasn’t that disappointed though, because we still had fun. I thought at the curling club the distance between the houses was going to be really big and I thought the rink would be bigger because when Mr. Borgia showed us how big the rink would be. He showed us a distance that made me think it was bigger than it actually was but it wasn’t as big as I expected. The stones were heavier than I expected and they were harder to push down to the house. I thought it was going to be cold but it wasn’t that cold and I was wearing thin leggings, a sweatshirt, and a normal jacket. I also remember Nina was wearing the same thing and she was fine. Lastly, I thought that the ice would be at least a little slippery but it honestly felt like walking on the normal floor. I thought could I run on this ice? and I really wanted to, but I didn’t let my intrusive thoughts win.

In conclusion, The curling trip was really fun and we made some great memories there. I  also think it was interesting to compare my expectations vs reality and also comparing my school experience curling to my experience at the Ardsley Curling Club. Would you like to go curling one day?