 |
| CURLER1 |
The Ten Commandments of Curling, circa 1965
1. Thou shalt have no other game before me, for I am
the roarin’ game which was in the beginning (even
the stone age) is now, and shall ever be.
2. Come not upon the ice with the old house broom.
thou can’st not quicken the pace of a dying rock
with last year’s broom.
3. Thou shalt learn thy turns, both the out and the in for the skip will not
hold him guiltless who throweth the wrong turn.
4. Plan not a running shot when thou art asked for a guard, lest thou pass
thine own shot through, so sending thy skip up in the air; such play
getteth her goat, queereth her game, causeth her to swallow her
tobacco, and to revile thee openly.
5. Thou shalt hearken diligently unto the defeated skip when her voice is
lifted up in lamentation against the punk ice, and thou shalt not turn thy
face from her when she blameth her third. Even so, shalt thou secure a
listener against the day of thine own defeat.
6. Thou shalt not strew straws off thy broom in the path of thine own, or
thine adversary’s rock, neither shalt thou introduce any foreign body in
front of them causing them to halt in their course and to die suddenly
and become a hog, which is an abomination in the eyes of the skip.
7. Thou shalt not stealthily push or kick a rock into the house, for the
opposing skip will know of a certainty, and her anger will be kindled
against thee even to the point of breaking her broom handle over thy
head, and thrusting thee hence from the sight of curlers, causing the
ending of thy days of curling, for this is an unpardonable sin.
8. Thou shalt have no discourse with thine adversary while her foot is in
the hack and her hand is upon the rock, but if thou wilt, thou canst pray
for her.
9. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s rock, nor her new broom, nor her
lead player, nor her third woman, who is her mainstay and a wall of
defence in the day of battle.
10. And when thou comest to the last end, and hast the game won, and hast
still one rock to play, and then, played with great deliberation, thy
rock gambols playfully down the ice, sailing jauntily through the port,
and pusheth thine adversary’s rock into the house, so that it counts her
the end and the game, and thou comest down the ice with fear and
trembling, and art hailed by the enemy as a good sport and a fine curler,
and by thine own side with groans and mutterings for having thrown the
game away, thou shalt receive the proffered hand of thine adversary
with a smile, even though thou may wish it were her neck. |
|
|
|
