(relaxing music) - Hi, welcome to the Waltham Curling Club.

I'm Scott Tizzy.

Currently I'm president of the Waltham Curling Club.

I got started 20 years ago.

A coworker had seen an article on the Waltham Curling Club, and he sent it to me and said, "Here's something we can do."

So I've been coming up here now for probably close to 18 years curling.

Right now we're currently, so we're probably about 80 members or so.

Some of these are multi-generational curlers where I'm a new newbie at this and stuff, but there's people who have been curling for, you know, 30, 40, 50, 60 years.

- I'm Bev Scharlau, I'm a team member.

I'm part of Waltham Curling Club.

(curling broom scraping) I'm 85.

I still curl.

I no longer get down on (indistinct), but I curl with a cue stick and it's wonderful.

I can still run up and down and sweep.

(upbeat music) - It's something you can play for years.

My mother played until she was 90.

- I love it.

It's great exercise.

It's a great game.

We can play with eight year olds and 90 year olds, youngsters and people my age and all in between.

(curling rock sliding) (upbeat music continues) - My dad's grandfather was one of the original members, so I was kind of born into the game.

There has been a Wilson Curl in this curling club since 1884.

My sister's great-granddaughter is starting now.

She's about 9 or 10, which would make her about our at least seven generations.

- That's what's so great about this sport, I think.

Grandma can curl with grandsons.

- Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

- Curling can be a very strategic game to play.

You're using a stone, a granite stone and pushing it down the ice.

- [Bev] There's four people on each team.

Each team member delivers two stones.

The goal is to get it closer to the center.

- We don't have a lot of items we need.

We have our stones, which are the granite stones.

They come out of a quarry in Scotland.

You have a broom that you're gonna sweep with, which will kind of help the rock either go further or take less of a curl and sub each time.

And that's what you're trying to really manage is that line and the speed that the rock is going on.

The experience when you're curling is celebrating the good shots.

Whether it's yours or whether it's the opponent.

Say, "Hey, good job."

You know, because there's nothing that I can do that will affect their shot directly.

- You compliment your opposing teammates when they make a great shot.

It's an honor thing.

You know, if you fall a stone you say so.

- I'm going to quote my father.

He said, "By God I've been watching and playing this game for over 65 years, and I have still not seen one where the outcome was decided by a guy in a striped shirt blowing a whistle."

They are their own umpires out there.

How old is curling?

- [Interviewer] Yeah.

- Supposedly there's a curling stone that they found in Scotland.

It's got 1515 carved into it.

The oldest club was 1668.

So Scotland is definitely the birthplace of the game as we know it now.

- [Bev] The Scott's brought it over to the area.

Older gentleman curled on the ponds, bundled up and brought their own two rocks.

Nobody's rocks look like the other guy's rocks.

- There are three other curling clubs in Illinois.

We are the oldest registered one.

- The original club started in 1884, and where they originally started playing was on the Tomahawk Creek where it flowed out of Waltham into Dimmick.

When they built this building in 1940, there were doors that folded out so that the wind could blow through.

- [Bev] The sides opened up, it was natural ice.

- And then we had the artificial ice put in, I think it was in the mid '50s.

- The best part about this club, there were years where it was the competition, there were years where it was the camaraderie.

See those two girls over there on the wall?

They won a trip to Scotland two years ago because they won the mixed nationals.

- We'll usually do two bonspiels a year, which is sort of a tournament, a men's and then a mixed.

We'll have clubs from Wisconsin, Iowa.

You know, we have some coming from Canada and stuff at our bonspiels.

I think the best part about doing it is the camaraderie you get, because once we're done you, you're gonna say, "Okay, good curling.

You know what?

Everybody did a good job."

And then you're gonna go back and sit and just talk with the people and stuff.

So it's a very friendly atmosphere for that.

- Curling friendships develop really, really quickly and they do last.

- Just the friendships I've made.

We have curling friends from Wisconsin, and we have curling friends from Scotland.

- I just like people to come out and give it a try.

It's walthamcurling.org, and you can try the game yourself and see what it's like.

- Every game is a good time.

- Oh, you just have to come and try.

- My hope: I hope it lasts for another 200 years.

(serene music) (serene music continues)