The floor of Jacksonville’s Veterans Memorial Arena is covered with long sheets of ice in preparation for Saturday’s start of the U.S. Curling Championships.
In curling, the object is to glide a 42-pound stone down a sheet of ice and make it stop as close to the center "button" as you can.
Three-time Olympic curler John Shuster says to do that you have to literally sweep the ice.
“What you can actually do by sweeping in front of the rock,” he says, “you can manipulate the path the rock goes, and you can actually make the rock go farther in a straighter line and make it probably go 10 to 20 feet farther by sweeping in front of it.”
Ten men’s teams and seven women’s teams will be in Jacksonville competing for the national title. Joel Lamp with the city’s Sports and Entertainment Office says the opportunity to host the tournament was too good to pass up.
“When we started looking at it,” he says, “it was a time frame when we felt like there’s a window for us and it’s a time where we can bring something into Jacksonville, it can make an impact to downtown, it can make an impact in hotels, and it’s for eight day,s so people are going to be staying and spending a lot of money here for the week.”
Lamp says he expects the curling championships to boost Jacksonville’s economy by around $1 million.
Opening ceremonies are Saturday at 2:30 p.m. The women’s championship final is Friday, Feb. 12 at 7 p.m. The men’s final is Saturday, Feb. 13, at 6 p.m.
Ticket prices start at $10.
