Family members often cheer one another on. They clap, shout, and yell support for one another. But you won’t hear or see any of that with the sisters Johnson.
Cassie and Jamie, not twins, but sisters who are said to have an unspoken connection on the ice, are the captains of what has been named “Team Johnson.” These sisters hope to bring home Italian gold in this year’s Winter Olympics, just the third showing of the centuries-old Scottish sport of curling.
The sport, often called “shuffleboard on ice,” is a highly-competitive sport that involves a 42-pound stone released by a single competitor with the purpose of getting into the center of a series of concentric circles. Other players on a team will use special “brooms” to smooth out the ice and allow the stone to travel to the intended destination. While it seems a simple tournament, it’s actually a complex sport that relies on tough judgment, a keen understanding of physics, and deft physical control. Participating in curling doesn’t make one fit, but one must be fit to play the sport well.
“You need a little bit of endurance because those games get to be 2½ hours,” Cassie told Olympic press agents in a recent interview. “At the Olympics you play one every day.”
Cassie is the “skip,” or captain of the team, and her sister serves as the “vice-skip.” The rest of the team consists of Maureen Brunt, Jessica Schultz, and Courtney George. In 2002, another sister act, Kari Erickson and Stacey Liapis, led the U.S. women’s team to a fourth-place finish. The Johnson sisters are looking change that, but they face stiff competition from Great Britain’s women’s team, which stole the gold at the last Winter Olympics. » Read more: Sisters Hope to Turn Chemistry on Ice into Gold in Torino Games
