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You know you're going to watch footage from this Russian car curling tournament

We need to get this on Sky Sports ASAP

You know you're going to watch footage from this Russian car curling tournament
20 March 2017

True story: in my teenage years, a friend of mine hosted a house party while his parents were away. His parents were both Scottish so, naturally, owned a curling stone. Equally naturally, when it was discovered that a curling stone was in the house, it was deemed (by others, I hasten to make clear) that the only logical course of action was to have a curling tournament in the house. Thus, the fridge was opened, the entire kitchen floor was buttered, and the competition began. History does not record who won the curling competition, nor just how much trouble my friend was in when his parents returned to find an extremely slippery and highly-dangerous kitchen, but it demonstrated that curling is a sport than can bring joy and fun to many, especially after drinking industrial amounts of low-strength, low-quality lager.

This is something that is clearly understood by the good people of Yekaterinburg, the fourth-largest city in Russia, who held the first-ever Russian car curling tournament on Saturday.

For the uninitiated, curling is a sport that dates back to medieval times where players slide granite stones across ice, aiming to land their stones in concentric rings, each worth more points the closer to the centre they are. Each team has eight stones, with the final positions at the end counting for points. It’s basically bowls on ice.

Just check out this action, as four teams smashed cars at each other across ice (with all heavy parts, such as motors, removed – probably a good idea really):

Brilliant, and for those thinking that this is a crazy, expensive thing to do, it’s actually, perversely, the exact opposite.

Curling stones are hideously expensive - there are only two official sources for them Ailsa Craig, an island off the Ayrshire coast of Scotland, and the Trefor Granite Quarry in Wales – and it can cost around £6,000 to buy a new quality set of 16 Trefor stones.

Meanwhile, according to one Redditor, “a scrapped Yugo which doesn't even start from a junkyard will cost you maybe $400, for 16 of them that's $6,400 (£5,170).

So it’s fun, practical and cheaper than normal curling.

And, if you’ve got enough butter, you don’t even need ice. Let’s get this going in the UK ASAP.