Curlers have been striking that reflective pose since at least the 1500s in Scotland, where the game is believed to have originated. One of the earliest matches involved two Scottish monks, John Sclater and Gavin Hamilton, who, according to accounts published in Latin in 1540, “would go to the ice at an appointed place and they would there have a contest with stones thrown over the ice.” The game flourished, in part because the Scottish Parliament had recently banned football, claiming it would lead to hooliganism. (They were right.) By 1773, curling had become so established that Scottish poet James Graeme was moved to describe the game:

The goals are marked out;
the centre each
Of a large random circle;
distance scores
Are drawn between,
the dread of weakly arms
Firm on his cramp-bits stands
the steady youth
Who leads the game:
low o’er the weighty stone
He bends incumbent,
and with nicest eye
Surveys the further goal,
and in his mind
Measures the distance;
careful to bestow
Just force enough;
then, balanc’d in his hand