Minnesota winters are long, dark, and generally hostile to human happiness. It is perhaps no surprise then that Minnesotans have developed an impressive range of diversions.

In fact, we are world champions at taking perfectly normal pastimes and saying, “Ya know, let’s put that on ice.” Fishing? Ice fishing. Football? Hockey. Walking? Falling. So, of course, bocce ball eventually became curling, bocce’s frozen, plaid-wearing cousin from the Range.

At first glance, curling appears to be bocce ball on ice, only more complicated and with far heavier equipment. You’ve got a target (called the house), and you’re trying to get your heavy thing closer than your opponent’s heavy thing.

In bocce, the heavy thing fits nicely in your hand. In curling, it’s a 44–pound granite stone that looks like

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