Coldwater, Ont. curlers play 80-hour game, await confirmation of world record

Yesterday, ten curlers at the Coldwater Curling Club finished a very, very long game — and walked away as new world-record holders.

The game began on Friday at 10:05 a.m. It ended 80 hours, 21 minutes and 31 seconds later.

“It was an amazing experience and once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Corrine Bertolo, one of the curlers, told Yahoo Canada News.

The previous world record for longest curling game was 73 hours, 6 minutes and 52 seconds.

The exhausting game, dubbed “Rocks Around the Clock,” also served as a fundraiser for Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre’s Radio for Radiation campaign, Gilda’s Club Simcoe Muskoka, and for the Coldwater Curling Club. It will be a couple of weeks before the curlers know how much money they raised.

Bertolo explained how the long shifts on the ice were organized:

“We had two five-man teams, and you play with four players at a time. And every eight hours, you got a two-hour break and the next person would come on,” she said. “We would change positions every time. So we would make new people coming on start at skip. And as people were coming on, we’d drop down a position. Our last position was lead, and then after that, we would go off for a two-hour break. So we were only on the ice for eight hours at at time.”

The lively atmosphere at the curling club — spectators stopped by to cheer on the teams at all hours of the day and night — often made it difficult for the curlers to sleep during their two-hour breaks, adding to their exhaustion. Still, the 80-hour game was worth it.

“Everybody was clapping and cheering,” Bertolo said of the record-breaking moment, emphasizing that the crowd was incredibly supportive throughout the entire event, not just when they reached their goal.

“Even before, every time we would get off the ice for a break everybody would clap and cheer us on, it was amazing.”

The game is being submitted to Guinness World Records. Within 12 weeks, the curlers will know if their 80-hour game qualities for the famous record book.

“We filmed the entire time. We also had 42 witnesses come out and document the entire game for us,” Bertolo told Yahoo Canada News. “We’re definitely world record holders now, but hopefully we’ll be Guinness World Record [holders] as well at the end of the 12 weeks. We’ll just have to wait and see.”