BRUNSWICK

With the Winter Olympics underway, fans get a chance to see some unique sports. One of those thrust into the spotlight every four years is curling.

While it may be a new sport to some viewers tuning into the Winter Games, it’s not so at Bowdoin College. The college started a club curling team in the fall of 2010. Since then, the club has seen a dramatic rise in popularity and participation.

“We have the recipe for success here,” said co-captain Tom Ezquerro. “We’re on track to get invited to our third national championship.”

Curling resembles shuffleboard on ice. But instead of weighted disks used in shuffleboard, heavy polished stones are slid toward a target. Team members use brooms to sweep the ice in front of the stones to guide the stones’ trajectory.

Ezquerro and fellow senior captain Cole Hamel have used the game’s growing popularity and hard work to expand the club at Bowdoin. When the pair were freshman, the team had five members. This season, the coed club is up to 28 members. Ezquerro said there is usually a rise in popularity in the two years following the Olympics.

The best part about the game for students is that experience isn’t needed to be a part of the national championship contending club.

“Most people who come to the team have no experience,” said Ezquerro. “They heard about it, like most people have, through the Olympics.”

The team at Bowdoin is a close group, thanks in part to the amount of travel the sport requires. The team plays in tournaments, known as “bonspiels,” on weekends from October to mid-February. A bonspiel usually starts on a Friday or Saturday and runs through Sun- day. A team plays at least three games, but can play up to six, depending on how well they do.

“We’re pretty much road warriors on the weekends,” said Ezquerro. “A lot of time in the van and time in hotels, having fun and getting our work done.”

The team practices twice a week, once during the week at Bowdoin’s Sidney J. Watson Arena and once on Sundays at the Belfast Curling Club. Practices at the college present a challenge, as the ice is different from standard curling ice. According to Hamel, curling ice is colder, harder and more textured. The team uses a device known as a “pebbler” to replicate curling ice as best as they can. The work put into practices at Bowdoin and the Sunday drives help create a sense of unity on the team.

“We take our Sunday practices to also build the camaraderie of the team. Curling, at the very root of it, is all about camaraderie within your team and with other teams,” said Ezquerro. “It’s a gentleman’s sport, you always shake your opponent’s hand. If your opponent makes a great shot, even if it kills what your were trying to do, you sometimes very painfully say ‘that was a good shot.’”

In addition to treating the ice at Bowdoin, the team also must move their equipment from a third floor freezer in the arena down to the ice. Curling stones must be kept cold to prevent them from sticking to the ice surface.

“We mostly practice techniques here,” added Hamel of the Bowdoin ice time. “Practicing actual game mechanics is something we do up in Belfast.”

Ezquerro and Hamel started the sport as freshman at Bowdoin, like most members of the team. In fact, only one member of the team had any experience prior to college. They have quickly learned the finer points of curling. For example, all of that sweeping greatly effects the movement of a stone. Hamel said a good sweeper can move a stone up to 12 feet across the ice sheet.

“Curling with bad sweepers is like playing quarterback with bad tight ends,” said Hamel. “Your effectiveness immediately diminishes.”

Kylie Best is the one member of the team with experience before college. She started playing in high school at a club in Arizona. She even kept playing the sport while studying abroad in Lyon, France. Her passion for the sport helped her integrate into the community there, playing as the only female and only member of the club under 35.

“It was a good way to keep up with it and reach out to the community,” said Best. “I met people I wouldn’t have otherwise met.”

The team will continue their quest for a third straight national tournament appearance in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, this weekend. They will split up to represent Bowdoin in two bonspiels. Bowdoin is the host of one of the tournaments in Cape Cod, and will play another in Utica, New York.

chris@timesrecord.com