Look at the roster at a curling tournament, and you'll notice a lot of the same last names. Birr, Brown, Fenson, George, Pottinger ... On the 20 teams that competed at the Curling 2010 Olympic Team Trials, held last week in Broomfield, Colo., nine sets of siblings, two sets of cousins, and three husbands and wives were listed. One team even featured a mother and daughter.

As AP writer Pat Graham pointed out, curling runs in the family.

"Curling is such a small sport," explained Todd Birr, skip of Team Birr, which features his younger brother Kevin as lead (the first team member to deliver a stone in each of the 10 ends). "You don't have a huge pool of players to pick from. So your brother or your sister is right there. That's the one you grew up playing with. That's who you stick with."

"A few years ago, at the national final four, the Larway brothers were playing together, the Birr brothers were playing together, the Fenson brothers were playing together, and Craig Brown had his sister (Erika) playing in the final four of the ladies," adde****evin Birr, who at age 39 is just 20 months younger than Todd. Todd an****evin live just 10 miles from each other in Minnesota.

When tensions run high in a competition, this seems like a recipe for big-time family feuds. Don't they sometimes want to bash each other over the head with their brooms?

"My favorite quote about that is - and I stole it from someone up in Canada - there's been a few trips home where we've had to get out of the car and roll around in the ditch for awhile," joked Todd. "But actually, no, we've always gotten along really well on the ice."

But when your brother is the skip, isn't it hard taking orders from someone you're related to?

"We work well together," sai****evin, who seems comfortable in his role as lead with Todd as skip. "It was noticeable at an early age that [Todd] was better than I am. So to be quite honest, I looked up to him and tried to be with him."

But Todd is quick to give his younger bro credit. "It's not an issue of being better than Kevin," he explained. "One thing the Canadians have over us is they find their positions so much earlier in their careers. They know who their front-end (lead) players are, an****evin found out he's a front-end player. He's a good, solid role player on the team."

"Every team needs a role player," Todd added. "You can't have four superstars out there, an****evin plays that position really, really well."

Kevin adds that they disagree very rarely on the ice. "We think alike, we've played together for so many years, and we practice together, and play against each other. We know where each other's mind is. When we disagree, then the rest of the team gets in on it. It's a whole team effort."

Sibling rivalry takes a back seat even with family members who compete on different teams. In the George family, 26-year-old Tyler skips his own team, and Courtney, 22, who competed in the 2006 Olympics, is the vice-skip on Team Wright. "At least if one person is doing well, you have something to be happy about," she said.

Last fall, Courtney gave Tyler the broom she used in the Olympics. "It's been our lucky charm," said Tyler after his team made the finals at Olympic trials.

And you never want to bash your sibling over the head with your lucky charm.