The cure for straight ice: BC Professor designs new stone that curls all the time

Is the ice at your club straight? And does that frustrate you? Would you like to have swingy ice all the time just like the best teams in the world seem to get at their competitions?

Say hello to UNBC professor Mark Shegelski, who has a patent for a new curling rock that he says will curl all the time, every time, as he told the Prince George Citizen:

Through experiments conducted a decade ago at the Prince George Golf and Curling Club, Shegelski found that by simply changing the diameter of the running surface of the stone, he could get the rocks to act the way they do at championship events without the more labour intensive changes to ice conditions. 

"We could make these rocks with greater radii and get more curl, which is something I thought the curlers really wanted in the game," Shegelski said.

Now the professor has one prototype that he says proves his theories but he's not advancing things because this is just a hobby, not his actual work. As well, he thinks you'd need to test it out over the course of a year. 

"You'd have to make 16 of these rocks and try them out at curling club for at least a full season and then see if other people at other rinks would be interested to do that in other rinks and curling clubs across Canada," he said.