Wheelchair Curling: Inexpensive Universal Fun

If you love hanging out in freezing ice arenas and are a sucker for competition at a very precise level, you can’t get any better than wheelchair curling. When it comes to adapted sports, this is one of the most inexpensive ones you can play. You don’t need a special chair, which is awesome. All you need is a modified stick, a stone, a few willing partners and some ice time.

And with the Sochi Winter Paralympics about to arrive (63 days away!), the wheelchair curlers of the world are gearing up. Canada remains one of the most prolific wheelchair curling teams in the mix, however the Russians aren’t too shabby either. And all levels of ability can play; from quads to paras, and both females and males are on each team.

If you have no idea how wheelchair curling is played and finally want to be enlightened on this insanely popular sport, check out our three videos below.

Our first video comes from the Canadian Curling Association. They’ve created dozens of interest videos regarding curling and they made a wheelchair curling video, and it’s thorough. Over 8 minutes long and featuring star Canadian wheelchair curler Chris Daw, he explains everything you would ever need to know about curling, and he is accompanied by an adorable young girl in a wheelchair helping him explain the sport. Check it out

Our second video is an official Sochi 2014 video explaining wheelchair curling and a Russian wheelchair curler host is featured in the video. He first explains how the sport is played, and then he also shows off the venue where wheelchair curling will be taking place, The Ice Cube.

Accessibility of the venue is also stressed and the video is in Russian, but don’t worry there are English subtitles on the bottom of the screen. It’ll be interesting to see how truly prepared Russia really is for the thousands of wheelchair athletes who will be ascending on the city of Sochi. Russia is usually not the most wheelchair-friendly, but his spirit of the Olympics tends to have an effect on how a country thinks. Watch the official video

Wheelchair curling is also huge in the UK, with many of the top wheelchair curlers in the world coming from this region. In this video profiling one of the most esteemed wheelchair curling clubs in the country – the South Lanarkshire Wheelchair Curling Club – you get to see what wheelchair curling truly means to the people who play and the volunteers who assist the athletes. Watch the heartfelt video

Anyone can get into wheelchair curling. I think that’s why I like the sport so much. And it’s only been in the Paralympics since Torino 2006; it’s new to everyone. You can seriously try it any age and have a chance at getting good at it.  What’s not to love, right?

– Find an accessible curling club near you

Have you tried wheelchair curling? How’d you do?

Watch the videos

– “Discover Curling” from the Canadian Curling Association featuring wheelchair curler Chris Daw

– Official video from Sochi 2014 on wheelchair curling

– The UK’s top curlers playing at the South Lanarkshire Wheelchair Curling Club