Open House: Canada and the Magic of Curling

With a keen eye and ear for story, Hockey Night in Canada host and bestselling author Scott Russell chronicles a sport both exotic and familiar -- curling.

Canadians have a unique enthusiasm for curling. It transcends barriers. World-class athletes curl with absolute beginners, and grandmothers and grandsons take to the ice together. There are more than a million registered curlers in anada, and millions more tune in to watch curling events on television. The outpouring of emotion that followed Sandra Schmirler’s death revealed that curlers are counted among our national heroes.

Curling doesn’t offer the excitement of other winter sports -- no thunderous body checks, no vertical leaps, no million-dollar superstars. But when Scott Russell visited curling clubs across the country, attended the Brier in Calgary and the Olympic games in Salt Lake City, and spent time with curlers, from celebrities like Colleen Jones to the unsung father, uncle and son-team who built the Eagle Hill Curling Club in Alberta, he discovered the magical allure of curling. As Canadian Olympic gold medalist Joan McCusker said of curling’s appeal: “Ordinary people doing extraordinary things is the attraction.”

Open House takes us inside the world of curling, and captures the spirit and lore of the sport, the dedication and passion of its participants.

Scott Russell is an award-winning sports journalist who has covered the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games, and the Canada Games. Author of Ice Time: A Canadian Hockey Journey and co-author of the bestselling The Rink: Stories from Hockey’s Home Towns, he lives in Toronto.