New York Post - USA (2020-11-14)

New York Post, Saturday, November 14, 2020

nypost.com

By suzy weiss

It’s getting chilly out, eh?

The curious Canadian sport of curling, which

combines the fun of rocks with the joy of

sweeping, is the latest edition to Bryant Park’s

annual Winter Village.

“We’ve never tried curling, but that could be

a good option for us,” said Robert Breeman, 30,

adding that the sport reminded him “of the

Olympics and those guys with the squeegees.”

Breeman has celebrated his birthday at the

park with his now-wife, Juliette, since they

started dating five years ago.

“The first year we went ice-skating, and it

was a miserable fail,” said Juliette, 28.

The Wyckoff, NJ-based couple, both account-

ants, won’t have to strap on skates at the Curl-

ing Café. Situated on the northeast side of the

park, it boasts five “ice-less” lanes made of

slippery plastic. Curlers are given “stones” to

sling at targets printed on the lane (known as

“the house”), a la shuffleboard. Serious curlers

use slabs of granite but here the stones are

hard plastic with wheels on the bottom.

“We wanted to create activities for people

who don’t want to ice-skate,” Irene Vagianos,

the brains behind the Curling Café, told The

Post.

This year’s Winter Village features an ice

rink, shops and a few new hangouts for the un-

usual season, such as heated igloos to lounge in

while curling with your pandemic posse.

“This is something you can do with your

friends to have fun and be active without being

crowded in an indoor space,” she added.

Lanes must be reserved online for groups of

up to eight people. Ninety minutes of curling

will set you back $250 to $575, depending on

the package, and include carafes of hot choco-

late (or beer and wine if you upgrade) and

bites like chicken fingers and brownie pops.

Posted signs and instructions explain the

game and offer tips such as: “Use a small back

swing and release the rock as it touches the

ice.”

The game of curling works like this: Two

teams (and teams can be as small as one per-

son, if a socially distanced date night is the

goal) compete to get as close to a red-and-blue

target as possible using the stones, while trying

to knock opponents’ stones off course. The

closer your stone is to the bulls-eye, the more

points you get.

“It’s really easy to learn,” said Vagianos, who

points out that a cafe host will be available to

get novices up to speed.

And when it comes to precautions against

COVID-19, Bryant Park is equipped: The clear

plastic tents will be wiped down between each

use and the curling gear will be sanitized. On-

line reservation information is used for contact

tracing, and masks are a must outside of the in-

dividual igloos. Each group gets a dedicated

lane, and each lane is more than 6 feet apart.

For parkgoers, all festive options are wel-

come.

“It’s usually a lot more crowded with more

shops,” said Juliette Breeman. “But at least our

favorite stall, Breezy Hill Orchard, [which

sells] ginger snaps, is still here. It’s still Christ-

mastime in New York.”

Curling Café at Bryant Park, 42nd Street at

Fifth Avenue. Reservations start at $250 and can

be made at Rink.WinterVillage.org

Wintry kicks on forecast for Midtown

Canadian

Sweep-

StakeS:

Anna Feiner (in-

set) sets up for

Bryant Park’s

Curling Café —

designed with

safely distanced

lanes and igloo-

style tents that

parkgoers rent

to play a broom-

less and ice-

less version of

the game.

Stefano Giovannini(2)

Weird

true

BUT

North Korea’s secret

weapon looks a little fishy.

The hermit kingdom’s na-

val force is training dol-

phins to find underwater

mines and attack enemies at

sea, according to the United

States Naval Institute.

The images reportedly

show animal pens in waters

near a breeding center with

warships docked nearby.

The porpoise program

likely dates back to 2015.

Techno may be obnoxious

but it’s music, a German

court has ruled.

Nightclubs blasting the

repetitive electronic beats

are subject to the same cor-

onavirus tax breaks as con-

cert halls, according to the

federal court in Munich.

While determining

whether to tax clubs 7 or 19

percent on ticket sales, a

judge noted that DJs make

their own original songs

and that revelers go to clubs

mainly for the “music.”

Bigfoot’s back.

A 4-foot sculpture of the

elusive, upright-walking ape

that went missing from a Cal-

ifornia museum was found

dumped on a road several

miles away, cops said Friday.

The wooden Sasquatch,

swiped on Monday, will be

returned to its home at the

Bigfoot Discovery Museum

in Felton, police said.

A cyclist was left feeling

prickly after he crashed into

a giant cactus during a race

in Argentina.

Diego Moreno was pedal-

ing near the back of the

pack in Buenos Aires when

he hit a pothole, flew off the

bike and landed on the

spiky plant. He wasn’t seri-

ously injured.

A lunar lander that was

lost during a 1966 moon

landing mission — and pre-

viously thought to be an as-

teroid — is expected to cir-

cle the Earth for weeks.

The Surveyor 2 was re-

leased into the cosmos dur-

ing a launching flub in Cape

Canaveral and has been

soaring through space ever

since, according to NASA.

Part of the device was re-

cently sucked into the

Earth’s orbit — and is now a

temporary satellite.

Natalie O’Neill, Wires