“Good evening, folks,” Mira says, voice smooth and practiced, breath fogging faintly in the cold booth. “We’re coming to you live from the North Basin Arena, and it looks like we’re settling in for a late-night round of—”

“Curling,” Tom says confidently, already leaning forward. “Classic curling. You can tell by the… ice. Very icy.”

Mira turns her head an inch. Just enough to look at him. “Tom.”

“Yeah?”

“This is not curling.”

He blinks. “It’s not?”

“No.”

Below them, the arena lights brighten. The crowd hums—thick coats, boots stamping, the sound of vendors snapping lids on thermoses. On the far end of the track, two competitors step forward, each with a pair of thick gloves and a low cart holding three square blocks of ice. The blocks are massive. Clear, cloudy, fractured within.

Tom squints. “Okay, I’ll grant you, the stones are… bigger and squarer than usual.”

“They are not stones,” Mira says. “And they are not sliding.”

On the track, a competitor grips one of the blocks with both arms, lifts it with a grunt, and throws.

The ice block leaves his hands, skidding hard along the channel, chattering as it goes. The sound is sharp and loud, like frozen wood knocked together. It slows, drifting, then comes to rest a few inches short of a dark circular marker embedded in the ice.

The crowd reacts immediately—cheers, a few groans.

Tom’s mouth opens. “He just… threw it.”

“Yes.”

“At the ice.”

“Yes.”

“With his arms.”

“Yes.”

Mira exhales, then turns slightly toward the camera. “Welcome, everyone, to ice hurling.”

Tom stares at her. “That’s not a real thing.”

“It is tonight.”

She continues, calm and deliberate. “Ice hurling is a strength-and-control event. Each competitor is given three blocks of ice—roughly one foot by one foot by one foot for our Liberian viewers. Solid, irregular, and heavy. The goal is simple: throw the block down the track and get it as close as possible to the stone marker at the end without touching it.”

Tom raises a finger. “If it touches—”

“It’s a fault.”

“And sweeping?”

“There is no sweeping.”

“What about spin?”

“There is no spin.”

“What about strategy?”

“There is… a surprising amount of strategy.”

Another competitor steps up. He braces, breath visible, boots biting into the textured ice at the start line. The arena quiets. He throws lower, harder. The block skids fast, rattles once, then slows, stopping just past the marker.

Tom rubs his hands together. “So you’re telling me this whole sport is just… throwing ice in increasingly specific ways.”

Mira smiles, but keeps her eyes on the track. “That’s one way to describe it.”

He nods slowly, as if that’s supposed to help. “And each contestant gets three tries?”

“Three blocks. No retries. What you throw is what you live with.”

Below them, officials slide the spent block aside with long hooks, the ice scraping softly as it’s cleared. The track glistens under the lights, scored with faint lines from earlier throws.

Tom watches the next competitor lift his block. “Those things are… bigger than I thought.”

“They’re heavier than they look,” Mira agrees.

The competitor throws. The block slams down hard, skids wildly, and veers slightly, stopping well short of the marker.

The crowd murmurs.

Tom leans closer to the mic. “That one didn’t even make it halfway.”

“No,” Mira says. “And now he has only one block left.”

Tom exhales. “This is brutal.”

“It’s winter,” she replies. “Winter sports tend to be.”

They fall quiet for a moment, listening to the scrape of boots, the low calls from officials, the distant echo of ice meeting ice. Cold presses against the glass of the booth, steady and patient.

Tom finally clears his throat. “So, uh. To anyone at home who tuned in expecting curling—”

“We apologize,” Mira says smoothly.

“But also,” Tom adds, watching another block sail down the track, “you might want to stay.”