On a Monday night in late November, Barry H. Bass, chief financial officer of First Potomac Realty Trust of Bethesda, crouches on the ice inside the National Capital Curling Center in Laurel. In his left hand, he holds a broom at an angle, brush down, to help support his weight. His right hand rests on the red handle of a 42-pound granite stone. Bass is old-school. When he "throws" a rock, he lifts it slightly before pushing off the hack -- a set of blocks similar to the ones sprinters use -- and sends the rock spinning slowly across the ice. The circular motion is called curling. The stone glides toward "the house" -- two concentric circles on the other end of the 140-foot stretch.
Bass slides along the ice for a few seconds after he lets go of the rock, while his wife, Pam Bass, begins to sweep the ice furiously in front of the stone. Sweeping slows down the curling motion and makes the stone travel a little farther. The stone finally comes to a halt inside the house, right where Bass wanted it.
Barry H. Bass plays curling at the National Capital Curling Center in Laurel.
(Kevin Clark -- The Washington Post)
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Bass, 41, picked up curling 16 years ago while working for a real estate company in Boston. His in-laws already curled. Before he and his wife started having children six years ago, they spent their weekends traveling to curling tournaments.
In 1991, Bass made it to the Olympic trials. But he and his team -- there are four members on a curling team -- drew the defending world champions for their first match. They lost.
Now, he competes mainly in the Potomac Curling Club's Sunday and Monday night tournaments. The season runs from November to the beginning of April.
Bass said First Potomac's top executives mostly play golf and squash. "I've tried to get them out to try curling and they refuse," Bass said. The few who have tried didn't like it.
Bass said he and his colleagues play golf a few times a month with investment bankers. But he's also found white-collar professionals to talk business with at curling events.
His club, which has about 150 members, includes mortgage bankers, college professors and a rocket scientist. Smart people, he said, have an affinity to curling, which is in some ways like chess. The "skipper" of a curling team has to decide where the rocks should go and when to take out the opposing team's rocks. The team with the most rocks closest to the center of the house scores a point for each rock in the house. "It's a lot of strategy," he said. "It's very analytical."
-- Annys Shin
