Curling - it’s both easier and harder than it looks. Thankfully for Helena, there's a dedicated group helping people get into the sport.
“It can be a lot of fun, it can be a lot of work,” said curler John Balachowski.
“It can be a great time, you're meeting a lot of nice people,” said curler Edwin Bender.

After watching the Olympics this year, first-time curlers say they wanted to get a better idea of how it worked and give it a try themselves.
Over at Steed Arena, the Last Chance Curling Club is hosting a daytime league for beginner curlers wanting to get their feet wet. This league runs on Thursdays for five weeks from 12:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., targeting the older demographic looking to try something new.
(WATCH: Helenans find community in curling)
“I’m retired, and I’m always looking for ways to meet new people, and get out and have fun,” said first-time curler Betsy Burns.
“It always looked like a lot of fun, and it's nearby,” Balachowski said.
“My dad used to curl,” said first-time curler Mary T. Williams. “We used to live in canada and he curled up there, and I thought, this would be great!”
“I’d been kind of thinking about it through, frankly, through the years, I was like, God, I ought to try that,” said first-time curler Doug Williams.
Curling has seen a boom in popularity in the past few decades, much of that because of Olympic coverage.

Helena even has a curler in the Paralympics this year, Katie Verderber, who’s also a member of the Last Chance Curling Club.
The experienced curlers in attendance say just about anyone can give it a try, but it may take some time to get the hang of it.

“Curling’s a lot harder than it looks,” said Last Chance Curling Club board member Neil Sauter. “People think oh thats so easy, but our learn to curl process is really fun and informative, so it usually takes people a couple hours to get the hang of how to do it.”
“It’s been a little more difficult,” Doug said.
“42 pounds of stone is hard to get going,” said curler Jeff Priddy.
Like all sports, you have to follow the rules.
“Well, the object of curling is to get your stone closest to the center of the house, or the bullseye, which in curling is called the button,” Sauter said. “You alternate shots, and so essentially you're trying to hit the opponent's shot out of the way and roll yours towards the center.”

In curling, there are four positions on a team. The ‘skip” acts as the team captain, calling the strategy for the turn. Then you have the stone thrower, and two sweepers who use brooms to smooth over the path of the moving stone.
Each team has eight stones with the goal of having their stone closest to the center at the end of a round, scoring points. Games last eight to ten rounds, and the team with the most points at the end wins.
MTN spoke with the curlers, asking how they felt the first session went.
“Not too bad, I had two really lucky shots and several really bad ones,” Priddy said.

“It was great,” Bender said. “We won, yay!”
“They’re very good at explaining everything,” Mary said. “It's been great, great time.”
Curlers say the best part of curling is the community it creates.
“Curling is a great community,” Sauter said. “People are really friendly and welcoming, and especially the newcomers here, so it's great to try if you're looking for new friends.”

“Just a wonderful community, it's growing hopefully,” Bender said.
“The next few weeks we'll be doing some more, so I'm looking forward to it,” Doug said.
If you're interested in learning how to curl, the club still has registration open for three leagues. First timers can try it out on Thursdays from 6 to 8 p.m., running from March 19th to May 21st, or on Fridays at the same time slot, running from March 27th to May 1st.
More experienced curlers looking to get back into it can sign up for a league on Thursdays from 8 to 10 p.m., running from March 19th to May 21st.