The Black Bonspiel of Willie Maccrimmon

In what may be the ultimate wry commentary on men's addiction to sports, Canadian writer Mitchell spins a whimsical yarn about curling, a popular game in which players sweep a stone disk across ice toward a target circle. Willie MacCrimmon, cobbler and bereaved widower, strikes a Faustian pact with the Devil: Willie's team will win the Canadian curling championship, but in return Willie must curl for the Devil in Hell (on artificial ice, of course)-unless the dour shoemaker and his Alberta team outcurl the Devil's men in a challenge match. The Satanic lineup features Judas, Guy Fawkes (the English agitator who conspired to blow up Parliament in 1605) and Macbeth-who soliloquizes, ``Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow / Curls on this petty pace from end to end.'' The raucous life-or-death contest climaxes with a mock magazine article reporting on the slippery triumph of good over evil. Illustrated with charmingly detailed black-and-white engravings, this odd tale, adapted from Mitchell's play (which began life as a magazine story), bristles with puckish humor. (Sept.)