{"id":73480,"date":"2025-08-16T08:00:44","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T23:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/aug\/16\/fuzzy-hats-and-a-ban-on-swearing-the-new-zealand-town-that-bonds-over-curling"},"modified":"2025-08-16T08:00:44","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T23:00:44","slug":"fuzzy-hats-and-a-ban-on-swearing-the-new-zealand-town-that-bonds-over-curling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=73480","title":{"rendered":"Fuzzy hats and a ban on swearing: the New Zealand town that bonds over curling"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Scottish goldminers first brought the sport to Central Otago and the traditions live on as farmers sweep stones and catch up on the ice<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>On a July evening in Alexandra, a small town in New Zealand\u2019s South Island, the temperature is a chilly 3C. While most of the town is in quiet darkness, at Ice Inline Molyneux Park, the lights are on and the banter is abundant. It\u2019s a social curling night, and the shouts of \u201csweeeep!\u201d can be heard from the car park. Players from teams with names such as the \u201cPlonkers\u201d, \u201cToo Dam Cold\u201d and \u201cDoome and Broom\u201d gather on the outdoor ice rink, sweeping furiously as 11kg curling stones move across the ice.<\/p>\n<p>L-R: A collection of enamel badges from curling competitions and tournaments. Curling stones ready to be put away after a Thursday night social curling game in Alexandra.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/aug\/16\/fuzzy-hats-and-a-ban-on-swearing-the-new-zealand-town-that-bonds-over-curling\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scottish goldminers first brought the sport to Central Otago and the traditions live on as farmers sweep stones and catch up on the iceOn a July evening in Alexandra, a small town in New Zealand\u2019s South Island, the temperature is a chilly 3C. While mos&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4895,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,3384,56,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-curling","category-new-zealand","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4895"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73480"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73481,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73480\/revisions\/73481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}