DCHP-2

roaring game † Orig. Scottish DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

• n.

  a winter sport first popular in Scotland, played by two teams of four players, each of whom slides, in turn, two stones down the surface of a sheet of ice, a team's object being to finish with its stones closest to the "tee" in the centre of the target area.

  See also: curling  

  • First recorded as roaring-play (Robert Burns, 1786), the game was so called from the hollow, rumbling noise made by a curling stone (formerly made of iron) sliding over an outdoor rink of natural ice on a pond, river, etc. Since little noise is made by a modern granite stone on an indoor rink of artificial ice, the name is often erroneously associated with noise made by the players, for example the instructions shouted by the skip to the sweepers.