This year‘s winter Olympics has wrapped up with U.S. winning 23 medals, and nine of them being gold. One of those gold medals was that of the U.S. men’s curling team. Curling is a highly underrated sport where the object is to get a stone in the middle of the house, which is a set of circles shaped like a bullseye. The playing surface of ice for curling is 150 feet long, with a set of circles at each end for play. Usually the skip (captain) starts at a starting block, called a hack, and pushes off with the stone until it crosses a tee. Then the other two players sweep the ice with a curling broom. Sweeping the ice clears debri in front of the stone and melts the top thin layer of ice reducing friction. One of our men’s curling teams did this well, and won gold. This was the first time since 2006 that a U.S. Curling team has made it to the semifinals. The team consisted of John Shuster, the skip, John Landsteiner, Matt Hamilton, and Tyler George, the alternative. Shuster’s team got off to a rocky start with a record of 2-4 in the first 6 games. But during the game against Canada, everything changed. They breezed through the next 4 games before facing Sweden, a very tough opponent. From the beginning, the Americans laid on the pressure, evident in both teams’ eighth turn or end, when Shuster landed a big shot clearing the house of the opponents rocks and giving US a 10-5 lead over the rattled Sweden. There was no coming back for Sweden and the Americans came out on top for their first curling gold. These boys from Minnesota and Virginia made not only Olympic history, but also U.S. history, by winning our country’s first curling gold ever, which is a memory they’ll never forget

Sources: www.nbcolympics.com