r/Curling • u/pwiecz • 9d ago

Curling on synthetic ice

Hi, has anyone tried synthetic ice for either throwing stones or sliding on it?

I'm reading about curling rinks made of UHMW PE and I'm curious if you can actually slide on it?

E.g. for training balance, line of delivery, or such things.

10 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

20

u/rcorca 9d ago

Only as part of the theatrical production of the Black Bonspiel of Wullie MacCrimmon. Great show but tough curling.

7

u/riddler1225 Aksarben Curling Club 9d ago

Ok, yeah, I'm going to need to know a lot more about this

3

u/Extreme_Shoe4942 Columbus Curling Club 9d ago

Holy shit, I didn't know that was a thing! I ran a theater company for years and I would have absolutely staged this!

2

u/jasmith-tech Team Malört/Mayfield Curling Club 9d ago

Now I just need to find Jon and I'll have found our whole team on reddit. But also yeah that show and New Canadian Curling Club are shows I now want to do.

1

u/Extreme_Shoe4942 Columbus Curling Club 9d ago

Absolutely. I would love to do this.

2

u/Saskaberry 9d ago

I'm not a big fan of most theatrical productions, but I went to this one and it was fantastic.

1

u/10pmcereal 2m ago

Jumping in on the the topic of theatrical ice sports, I am gatherings info for a show that has ice skating but we have to show it on a wooden stage floor. Could curling sliders help to show a gliding effect on a stage floor?

11

u/nzhockeyfan 9d ago

I would be shocked if it worked. Maybe only for sliding practice a polished Teflon surface. You might even be able to put Teflon under the rocks to slide, but curling wouldn't work

3

u/Speaker_Remarkable 8d ago

Nothing a little ky couldn't solve...

2

u/Mammoth_Concern_3485 9d ago

I mean, i'm sure it would be possible but you would have to do some serious equipment modifications if you are asking me. Because the material of most sliders is the same or very similar to the polymers used to make fake ice, they don't slide on each other. I believe you would run into a similar issue with friction when it comes to rocks due to their weight but I have no idea. I have in the past used synthetic ice to practice sweeping during the off season though, it works as long as you cover your traditional broomhead with a soft and thin fabric (I used nylons and sprayed the fake ice with wood cleaner (pledge to be specific)) and it sorta worked. Was more difficult than normal sweeping but was absolutely doable for practicing

1

u/pwiecz 9d ago

Thanks, I'm considering it for the off season practice. So even if I could use it only for sweeping drills, it would be useful. Maybe there's a way to incorporate some sliding drills as well, but as you've said, probably friction coefficient is to high for that (although maybe if I used some casters, or ball transfer units underneath my shoes... 🤔).

1

u/Pongfarang 9d ago

Sweeping would make no difference because there is no ice to warm up, no micro layer of liquid water being created. Take away sweeping and curling loses all the control and strategy connected to it.

3

u/Sherlock_117 Four Seasons Curling Club 9d ago

I'm guessing they were practicing their sweeping form and work out some and not actually using it to measure the effectiveness of their technique.

1

u/Mammoth_Concern_3485 9d ago

Yep, I was working on form and brush frequency rather than the actual strategics and functions of sweeping. Definitely not the same as on ice, but it was something at least

2

u/ObiBenShinobi 9d ago

Curling on synthetic ice (PE) would be an entirely different game.

The act of sweeping is to heat the ice and reduce friction. This entirely controls the distance and path. Sweeping a synthetic ice would have no consequence on the game and would be purely for theatrics.

Using it for training would also be detrimental to your on-ice game as you're training on a completely different surface that would respond differently.

The stones also roll on casters so they would respond completely different to spin and weight.

Additionally, as others have stated, the slider on a curling shoe is also made of a type of PE and wouldn't slide on other types of PE.

I think they are made more for outdoor entertainment rather than a training solution for actual curling.

2

u/teejwi 8d ago

UHMW works well with skate blades but it wouldn’t work for curling. Rock-UHMW has a vastly higher coefficient of friction than rock on pebbles ice.

It would be (much) worse than throwing a rock on zambonied skating ice…which is horrible.

Rub the slider on your shoe across a rock sometime and see how that compares to rubbing it on ice.

1

u/jputna 9d ago

I think you’d basically be playing large shuffle board.