Shaffer, who is on the board of directors of the Columbus Curling Club, is the organizer of what is almost assuredly central Ohio's first wheelchair curling clinic.

The event is set for 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 14, at the club's two-year-old facility at 2999 Silver Drive in the Clintonville area. It is intended for people interested in participating in wheelchair curling or who want to learn how to teach others the wheelchair version of the sport.

Some members of the 2010 USA Paralympic Wheelchair Curling Team will be on hand to offer those attending the clinic a detailed explanation of the game, a demonstration, on-ice instruction and autographs.

The cost for attending is $5 a person.

Veterans are invited to participate for free.

Shaffer was thinking it would be pretty neat if someone attending the clinic might wind up representing Columbus as a member of the 2014 USA Paralympic Wheelchair Curling Team.

"I'd love to see, as a start, just some participants," said Shaffer, who also is chairman of the club's building facilities and maintenance committee. "To have a team, that would be great."

To have someone become adept enough to participate in the Paralympic Games, in Shaffer's view, would be even better.

"I suppose it's possible that it could happen," said Michael Gallagher, current Columbus Curling Club president. "The problem is not having had any demand, it's hard to ascertain what the market is for that."

Ascertaining the market for curling, period, let alone a wheelchair version of the sport, in football-obsessed central Ohio is probably a dicey proposition, at best, but Columbus Curling Club members are willing to give it a shot.

Curling, which is thought to date back as far as the 14th century in Scotland and Holland, according to the Web site of the United States Curling Association, is sort of a merging of shuffleboard and bowling.

Only on ice.

And there are brooms involved.

For most Americans, curling is that sport dominated by Canadians at the Winter Olympics and the general response when coverage begins on television is, "What are those people doing?"

Still, the sport has its adherents in the Upper Midwest, and the Columbus Curling Club is entering its sixth season, its second with its own "ice," as the playing venue is called, in converted warehouse space at the rear of the Bunk and Loft store building.

The club now has about 100 members, Shaffer said, down from a high of 140 a few years ago. But the addition of a third sheet of ice at the club's facility could allow membership to increase to as high as 160 or more.

"Curling ice is a very special thing," Gallagher said. "It needs to be a very flat and particular surface, so it's very difficult, really, for curling to share with other applications like hockey and such. Having our own ice has made all the difference."

People become hooked on curling for pretty much the same reason they find themselves drawn to any other sport, he added.

"It's a game of balance and judgment and a certain degree of strength," Gallagher said. "It's a game, though, that can be played by people of all ages. It's a game that can be played evenly by men and women."

"There's a surprising amount of skill involved, so that makes it challenging -- physically, athletically challenging," Shaffer said.

But not too challenging by any means for people who must use a wheelchair.

"Wheelchair curlers play with the same rocks and on the same ice as regular curlers, though the rocks are thrown from a stationary wheelchair and there is no sweeping," according to Eric Eales of Kelowna, British Columbia, writing on his Web site wheelchaircurling.com. "The great thing about wheelchair curling is that just about anyone with access to a wheelchair can play. I've shared the ice with paras, quads, amputees, post-polios, people with MS, spina bifida, guys recovering from strokes and a couple with conditions with names so long and convoluted they defy description."

Shaffer, who had observed wheelchair curling demonstrations, chanced to meet members of the USA Paralympic squad while attending a "bonspiel," or curling tournament, in Washington, D.C., a while back. Thus was born the idea of a wheelchair curling clinic in Columbus, and the scheduling finally worked out to hold it in mid-November.

Shaffer, who has spread the word about the clinic through various means and by contacting the directors of adaptive sports programs, said that those interested in attending the clinic can find more information, including a signup form, online at www.columbuscurling.com.