Curling for fun and confusion at Vancouver

The Winter Olympic Games are a two-week extravaganza for fans of snow and ice sports. Athletes of 76 nations, from Albania to Venezuela, are competing in 86 different events. Team GB has 50 competitors, but, in true British style, the UK's biggest contribution is one of the more eccentric sports. The Brits have a talent for inventing games with strange equipment and bizarre rules: take cricket, for example. And for fans of all things peculiar and passionate, there's curling.

Created in medieval Scotland, the sport has lots of weird and wonderful terms that might make it confusing to understand the game at first. Try standing behind the hog line (player's mark), sliding up to the hack (rubber marker in the ice), and releasing your rock (curling stone) in an attempt to enter the house (scoring area) and get as close to the tee (centre spot) as possible.

Once you get past the terminology, you might actually enjoy curling. The Vancouver competition involves 10 teams, from which the top four will advance to the semi-finals. Oh, and Scotland are the men's world champions. So grab those rocks and brooms and hit the sheet!