Creating an ice surface for curling isn’t as simple as flooding an area with water and allowing it to freeze. The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina features some of the best ice technicians in the sport, and there is certain way they go about making the four sheets inside Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium.
Take a look for yourself as Great Britain’s Mark Callan, World Curling’s chief ice technician, demonstrates:
For curling ice, it’s not as cold as what you’ll find in an ice hockey rink and it is usually softer than a normal rink environment. The type of water is important. Just pulling out a hose and spraying isn’t enough to meet the standard. Curling water is run through a deionizing system that takes out minerals in order to have purer ice.
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Curlers play on a pebbled surface with the ice beads creating less friction resistance as the stones move towards the target area.
Ice technicians get a pebbled surface by spraying droplets of water that instantly freeze and create a texture that sets pockets of air below the stones.
The ice is then be scraped to even out the surface and allow the stones to glide.
Curling first appeared in the Winter Olympics in 1924, but was not on the recognized sport again until 1998 when a women’s competition was added to the men’s. In 2018, mixed doubles was introduced.
In all competitions, Canada is on top with six gold medals and 12 overall. Sweden is right behind them with four golds and 11 total medals. The United States have only won two medals in Olympic curling — one gold (2018) and one bronze (2006), achieved by men’s teams.
