Curling is a lot harder than it looks.

I naively believed the sport was easy, and while I knew in the back of my mind that there's more to it than chucking a rock down a sheet of ice, I didn't acknowledge just how difficult it is until I tried my hand at it.

The Cranbrook Curling Club hosts a drop-in every Tuesday night where anyone, regardless of experience, can go down and take a chance on the roaring game or hone skills for a future Briers or Tournament of Hearts.

I have never curled before, but since the Capital One Canada Cup of Curling is two weeks away, I figured I should introduce myself to what I once though of as a frozen version of shuffle board.

The Club provides the brooms and the 'sliders', a sole that goes over the shoe of one foot so that you can slide down the ice-just like the curlers on TV-along with all the rest of the equipment.

There was a gathering of beginners who took one sheet of ice to get some instruction from an experienced curler, but in typical Trevor Crawley (and male) fashion, I elected to take an unoccupied sheet and learn on my own by trial and error.

My first attempt at throwing a rock was laughable; however, anyone who may have watched was decent enough to refrain from making disparaging remarks about my form.

The rock made a slow curl as it drifted down the ice, stopping a few feet shy of the hogline, which means it would've been hauled off the ice because it didn't make far enough to reach the free guard zone-a good 15 feet from the edge of the outer ring of the house.

Oops.

But I learned why the sport is called curling after that first throw, watching that stone lazily rotate as it slid and I experienced something akin to a religious epiphany afterwards.

The sheet beside me ended up being short a team member, and despite my protests of being a curling virgin, they opted to take me on and instructed me in the subtle nuances of the game.

I was shown tricks such as the correct technique when sweeping with the broom and the different ways to grip the rock handle when throwing, along with learning the strategy behind every throw.

Rick O'Neill, one of the members on my team, has been curling for over 25 years, and was drawn to it mainly because of the social aspect.

"It's a sport that everyone can play and it just becomes fun for everybody," he said.

He was out with his wife, Lynn, who has rarely touched a curling broom, to show her the game and get some practice in for Wednesday night, where curlers gather for more competitive action.

O'Neill said that there's more to the game than the common misconception of tossing a rock down to the end and always going for the button.

"You try to bury rocks, you try to put them behind other ones; it's not just throwing it straight down, hitting a rock out and you're done," O'Neill said. "It's trying to place it and hid it."

The Canada Cup of Curling will have some of the best curlers in the country come to Cranbrook, and he said that as far as he's concerned, there won't be a single bad match.

"I think all of them will be really good, because they're all world-class curlers,' O'Neill said. "…Anyone can win on any given day.

"It'll just be great curling, something that you usually see on TV, that you don't usually get to see live, and it's right here."

There was some younger blood out on the sheets, as Jeff Langhin, 24, took to the ice, who only picked up a curling broom last year.

Langin is an avid golfer in the summer, but needed a winter sport to occupy his time; preferably something different from hockey or skiing, he said.

"I don't have a whole lot of winter activities, so it's something that's competitive, something that's fun, something that's a challenge," he said.

I had to leave before all the ends were finished, but I left with a real sense of the challenges of the sport, along with a healthier respect for the athletes who will be playing in the upcoming Canada Cup tournament.

So if you ever find yourself without anything to do on a Tuesday night, take a trip down to the Cranbrook Curling Club and give the roaring game a chance.

You might just like it.