Taking a sweaty summer stroll past Rome’s ancient monuments, the last thing that the doctor Luca Puzziferri expected to find facing the Colosseum in July was a decidedly winter sport.
But there it was, a curling rink perched on the Oppian Hill, as this area overlooking the first-century amphitheater has been known since ancient times. Soon, Dr. Puzziferri was gleefully throwing stones with his wife and two friends during Italy’s third blistering heat wave in months.
“The whole thing was totally spontaneous, and we had so much fun,” said Dr. Puzziferri, 37, who lives in Rome.
His friend, Giuseppe Nicoletti, a 36-year-old programmer visiting from southern Italy, said he had enjoyed “dabbling” in curling after watching this year’s Winter Olympics, which Italy hosted.
“But I can say that it seems much easier from home,” he said, laughing. “I mean we’re really doing terribly.”
Italy’s curling team thrilled supporters, winning a bronze medal in the mixed doubles, boosting television ratings and inspiring sports officials to install the Oppian Hill rink in June, in the hopes that Romans would come out and play. Despite the heat.
“After the Olympics everyone had a dream: to experience what it was like to curl, and we enjoyed making that dream a reality,” said Diego Nepi Molineris, the managing director of Sport e Salute, the state-owned company behind the project.
The rinks were placed “at an iconic location, perhaps the most iconic in Italy, facing the Colosseum,” he said, to show that even a sport that many “label as minor can become magnificent.” (The rinks are also next to a skatepark that Roman officials boast has the best view in the world.)
“We believe that every sport is great, and it’s us who make it seem minor,” Mr. Nepi Molineris added.
To be fair, this isn’t a regulation rink. There is no ice, for one: The surface is high-density plastic. It’s also about 40 feet long by almost 10 feet wide, while a standard “sheet” — as the curling surface is known — is around 150 feet long and 16 feet wide. The stones weigh about a tenth of the regulation weight, and brooms are used to recover the stones rather than sweep a path for them to travel.
“It’s the idea of the game,” said Andrea Gios, president of the Italian Federation of Ice Sports, which supported the initiative. At the rink, people described playing as a mix between bowling and bocce, the bull’s-eye ballgame ubiquitous to Italian communities around the world. “It’s simpatico,” Mr. Gios said.
Carlo Scarpato, 24, one of the employees managing the rink, said his job consisted mostly of warning people not to step on the lubricated sheet so they wouldn’t slip and get hurt. “We also explain the basic rules of the game,” he added.
There were no time limits to how long people could play, he said, though this summer’s blistering heat made for pretty short games. “I can assure you that if you’re playing for five minutes, the reflection of the white makes it unbearably hot,” he said of the rink’s surface.
Curling was invented in the 16th century by Scottish farmers who played on frozen bogs, using smooth stones found in channels. Scottish immigrants imported the game to Canada, where the first club opened in 1807, followed by a club in the United States some 25 years later.
The sport is a relatively new entry to Italy, where curling only took root during the 1950s when a hotel owner installed a rink in Cortina d’Ampezzo — the Alpine Italian town that co-hosted this year’s Olympics. Many celebrities, including Brigitte Bardot, gave it a whirl.
But climate was never on Italy’s side. Currently, there are only seven dedicated curling rinks in Italy, all in the north, and 425 card-carrying curlers. “It’s a niche sport,” said Valentino Masotti, a curler who has written a book about it. By comparison, Canada has more than two million curlers who play at least once a year, “by a wide margin, the greatest number of curlers in the world,” according to Al Cameron, a spokesman for Curling Canada.
Since Mr. Gios became president of the ice sports federation 12 years ago, its investment in curling grew from 150,000 euros a year to 911,000 euros (about $171,000 to $1 million), and the sport was placed on more professional footing. In Italy, public funds to sports are allocated according to results, so the better players do, the more money the sport receives.
The meteoric rise of the tennis star Jannik Sinner, for instance, has quadrupled the funds given to tennis in just three years. But ice sports still don’t have a national reach.
“There are few facilities, so it’s hard to capitalize on the visibility you might get during the Olympic Games, where everyone goes crazy for curling and falls in love with the sport,” said Joël Retornaz, the captain of the Italian men’s Olympic team. “But then, if they actually want to try it, they struggle because it’s hard to find an arena.”
He said he was one of “lucky few” to have been born in the northern village of Cembra, in Trentino, where most locals start curling as children.
There are no curling arenas in central or southern Italy — at least not regulation ones — said Aldo Tuba, who runs an ice arena just outside Rome. After the Olympics, he received many calls expressing interest in curling, he said, so he cobbled together an improvised game using beer barrels instead of stones.
“It was entertaining,” he said, if unconventional. Now, Mr. Tuba is working with regional officials to drum up funds for a curling rink in his arena.
“As a European capital, Rome deserves a curling rink,” said Bianca Di Tommasi, president of the ice sports federation for the Lazio region. But she admitted that the increase in energy costs since the start of the Iran war had added financial challenges to opening one.
Mr. Nepi Molineris, the Sport e Salute official, said that if there was a demand, the rink at the Colosseum would be rebuilt using real ice come November. “Even if the ice won’t be perfect for an international competition, it will be perfect for national entertainment,” he said.
On a recent Saturday, the heat didn’t deter a gaggle of sporty teens visiting Italy for an international basketball camp. They were captivated, playing through the heat, squealing and cheering as their coaches looked on.
“It’s a lot of fun, especially to do in front of the Colosseum,” said Zia Gonzales, 21, who coaches girls in the United States.
“I’m glad we did this at the end of the camp and not the start,” added Shaun Hoyle, 29, who coaches boys in Britain. “Otherwise we may have lost them here.”
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