In their book, Sports and Games in Canadian Life, 1700 to the Present, Maxwell L. Howell and Nancy Howell offer a slightly more prosaic, but also more likely, answer. They suggest that the circular, metal-rimmed hubcaps of gun carriages, with handles inserted, became the first irons that introduced curling to North America. It seems a better explanation than any other.

Whatever the facts, and how¬ever they were fashioned, it is indisputable that iron curling “stones,” shaped like tea kettles and weighing about 60 to 80 pounds [27 to 36 kg] each, for men-40 to 48 pounds [18 to 21 kg] for women-were the first stones to be used in the latter half of the eighteenth century.

Only in Canada, you say? Yes, ’twas only in Canada that irons appeared. There are no records, in Scotland or anywhere else, indi¬cating iron stones. When twenty merchants in Montreal elected to form the Montreal Curling Club in 1807, they used irons exclusively. (That’s not all that was exclusive, incidentally; the members were handpicked-no others need apply.) The Montreal Curling Club and 1807 are both significant: that curling club became the first organized sporting club in North America. Irons were used in Montreal and throughout the Ottawa Valley until the mid-1900s. Today they can be found in various parts of the country in trophy cases, as hog-line sentinels, as historical curios, or even doorstops at the local club.

Even today, when irons are only a memory, exhibition games are played at Montreal’s Stewart Museum on He Sainte-Helene by members of the Olde 78th Fraser Highlanders. 

Read more about the history of curling.

How its played

Delivery

The process of sliding a stone down the sheet is known as the delivery.

The skip will usually determine the required weight, turn and line of the stone. These will be influenced by the tactics at this point in the game, which may involve taking-out, blocking or tapping another stone.

• The weight of the stone is its velocity, which depends on the leg drive of the delivery rather than the arm.
• The turn, handle, or curl is the rotation of the stone, which gives it a curved trajectory.
• The line is the direction of the throw ignoring the effect of the turn.

The skip may communicate the weight, turn, line and other tactics by calling or tapping a broom on the ice. In the case of a takeout, guard or a tap, the skip will indicate the stones involved.

Learn more about how curling is played.