These 'Athletes' Hurl Cast-Iron Pans on Ice

Olympic curling it isn't, but in Chattanooga, Tennessee, the hottest thing on ice right now is a flying cast-iron pan. NPR dropped in on the city's Annual Skillet Curling Championship, where 32 costumed teams spend three days sliding frying pans toward a moving target they call "the bacon"—in actuality, a grill press chucked down the rink at the start of each round. Scoring follows standard curling rules, but the details are distinctly local: A four-point round is a "stovetop," upside-down pans are "turtles," and team names range from the Wu-Tang Pans and Curling Irons, to Cornbread & Butterbeans.

This year's winners, per WDEF: the Heavy Stones, beating the Kraken's Kilts. The event has grown from eight teams in 2019 to a pavilion-filling tournament backed by local cookware maker Lodge Cast Iron, whose factory rejects (aka "seconds) routinely shatter in the cold, per NPR. Beneath the silliness is serious fundraising: This year's competition raised around $90,000 for the Chattanooga Area Food Bank. One player calls the sport "completely meaningless"— except for the part where friends, beer, and charity turn it into something that clearly matters. Watch them in action at a past competition here.