Curling has long, strong roots in the region-but you either love it, or don't know much about it.

Merle Taylor, the spryest 86-year-old I know, took up curling when she was younger-68 to be exact. Like me, Merle is a curling addict.

You may know an addict: someone you wouldn't call during a televised game-perhaps the Tim Hortons Brier in Halifax this March, or recently during the Olympic Games, in Vancouver. And you would never mess with their Thursday night league play.

But for as many people who are addicts, there are many more who don't know much about the sport, even though it has a rich history in Atlantic Canada.

Despite claims by the Dutch, curling was most likely invented in Scotland. I always joke when the game frustrates me, which it often does, that only the Scots could come up with curling and golf-two sports that look deceivingly simple, until you try them.

But maybe those Scottish roots are the reason curling has been a strong sport in the Atlantic region. Maybe all the MacDonalds and McEwans were busy playing on frozen ponds over in Scotland before they boarded the Hector to start life on this side of the ocean. After all, one of the first clubs in this region was the New Caledonian Curling Club in Pictou, NS, formed in 1852.

The very first club in the Atlantic Provinces was the Halifax Curling Club. Back when I curled there in the early 1980s, the numbers marking the sheets were 1, 8, 2, 4. That was different from other clubs, where sheets are numbered 1, 2, 3, 4. At that time old-timer Hughie Little - "just throw the rock right out of the hack with no slide" (unlike today's long delivery sliders) - and I used to play a game of one-on-ones during our lunch hour. We played for a dollar bill (this was pre loonie.) I asked Hughie about the odd numbering of the sheets, and he explained that 1824 reminds everyone the year the club was founded.

To put that in perspective, the oldest established curling club still active in North America is the Royal Montreal Curling Club, established in 1807.

While the Halifax Curling Club might be the grand old dame of clubs in our region, the sport's history here-its cultural significance to the Scots' arrival in these parts-is probably taken for granted.

The first club in St. John's, NL, was built in 1843, bringing curlers in from playing on Quidi Vidi Lake.

Fredericton's first club was founded in 1854 by businessman John Neill, who imported curling stones from Scotland. The club's website offers an excerpt of a letter written by Mr. Neill, providing a glimpse of early activities: "We had great difficulty at first in getting good ice. We tried the river, Heron's Lake and the Nashwaak and several other places, but never had so good a place as we got at last in the Officer's Square."

The letter goes on to say they hauled wooden casks filled with water on sleds to make the ice. Today, John Neill's great-grandson Bob Neill is an active curler in the Fredericton club.

Contemporary curling

Drop in on any night at a club near you, and you'll likely find a full ice of polyester-wearing people yelling "hurray hard!" Several weeks ago, on a Friday night in Sackville, NB, I was watching all three sheets going strong for the first draw of the night, and there was still a 9 p.m. draw waiting to go on. This is a typical scene in clubs from Bally Haly in St. John's, NL, to the Thistle St. Andrews, in Saint John, NB.

The people in Windsor, NS, know what a social hub the curling club is to a community. In September 2007, the Windsor Curling Club, getting ready to celebrate its 100th anniversary, was torched, burning to the ground. The town mourned the loss, but not for long. The plan to rebuild started almost immediately, and a year later people were back throwing granite.

Ron MacCormack runs the junior program at the Windsor club. He served on the building committee and, like everyone else involved at the club, he's a volunteer.

Volunteers wear many hats at small clubs across the region. They can make a Bloody Mary or pebble the ice (add water droplets on the playing surface). Ron remembers the sadness over losing the club, and the resolve of the community to get it rebuilt. "It's been a gathering place for little rock curlers who start at age eight, to some of our senior members who are in their 80s," Ron says, as we watch our sons compete against each other in Yarmouth, NS.

What's the appeal?

There's a simplicity to curling that makes it appealing to watch on TV, whether you play the sport or not. Many people have said to me, "I've never curled or stepped inside a club, but I have to watch it and I start talking to the TV when I don't like a call the skip has made."

It takes maybe an hour of watching, and you start armchair quarterbacking like you're a pro.

To people who move away from armchair quarterbacking and actually take up the sport, there are a couple of attractions. It's easy enough that beginners get the hang of it fairly quickly, thinking they are ready to take on 2006 Olympic gold medalist Brad Gushue, the pride of Newfoundland and Labrador. (For the record, they are not.)

The sweeping is hard enough that you'll feel like you've had a workout, absolving you of any guilt you might feel about not going to the gym.

The third and most important thing that hooks people is that you laugh and gab enough during the game that you have a lot of fun-and fun is what keeps people coming back.

The real selling part of the sport? The winner has to buy the loser a drink How good is that? You've just lost a hard game; you're mildly disappointed. You shake hands at the end of the game, and the winner says, "What are you having?"

Then over a cold Moosehead, you all sit upstairs and exaggerate the shots you made. The longer you stay, the better the shots.

Now, there are two kinds of curlers. The elite, competitive curler makes up about 10 per cent of Canada's almost 1,000,000 curlers. These are the guys like Brad Gushue. The elite curler gets the glory and gives the club curler something to dream about. Club curlers play for the social, fun side and a little bit of exercise, and they are the backbone of the game. They keep club memberships full and the power bill paid.

I met a woman at my club, the Mayflower Curling Club, who had just moved from Ontario. She said whenever she moved to a new town, she never worried about being on her own-as soon as she joined the local curling club, she had found her new family.

I always thought curling was a metaphor for life with a little yin yang thrown in: the ice is smooth, the rocks are hard; the slide is effortless, the screaming over shots, ferocious.

The friendships made after the game over a beverage-they're at the heart of the sport. Just ask Merle Taylor. She had to give up curling this past season, but she still drops by once a week, to have coffee and lunch with the gang.

Colleen Jones is a world-champion curler from Halifax.