Curling with the Ottscots
By Patrick Dionne-Kuno

On April 9 2022, the Scottish Society of Ottawa hosted their annual kilted curling event
to celebrate Tartan Day. As the night started off at 6:30, my girlfriend Melissa and I 
arrived at the Rideau curling club. We were greeted by society members as well as facility
employees who checked if we were pre-registered for the game. 

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As we registered, they explained to us how to play, the rules and how to make the game 
interesting : random rules that we had to pick out of a container that had wacky restrictions
as well as bonuses. (For example: the team with the most tartan or kilts (kilts taking president
over any other piece of clothing) gets two extra points or only the 2nd and 4th players were able
to play this round). Being our first game of curling, we discovered that the game is played with 4 players: two thrower and two sweepers. Since we were only two, they paired us up with another couple which we were able to mingle with before the game. We also decided on a name for our team, Clan Logan! Once we got our curling soles or shoes on, (for those who are wondering about the soles, here is a brief explanation: one is to grip on the ice and prevent from falling during the sweeping and one is a "slide" which is used when throwing the rock to the sweepers direction and it's optional if your shoes aren't anti-slip) we headed on to the ice to play.

We were so brand new that we had difficulty playing since we would slip all the time. 

When we were done playing, we got to the lounge around 8:30. The society had prizes to give out, like biggest loser,(a bar of homemade Scottish soap because apparently they stink at the game) winner of the night, ticket draw and also gifts for our VIP guests. During the event we had two members from the UK embassy join us as well as Michael Yellowlees the Scottish environmentalists who walk coast to coast in support of Scottish reforestation. 

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 Afterwards we had pizza provided by the society and music from local musicians. Members of the society that didn’t want to play were still able to come for the pizza and music for 8$ each instead of the 40$ each we had to pay to play curling. All in all I love being able to try a different sport and have fun while doing it. I think it’s making me want to play again!