SCOTLAND'S curlers may have come home from the Winter Olympics with no medals packed in their carry-on luggage, but their efforts at the games have generated something potentially more valuable than gold, silver or bronze – a boom in popularity for the centuries-old sport and, it's hoped, a sustained increase in participation in the years ahead.

It's facile to call curling the new rock 'n' roll. Everyone knows it's a stone you use not a rock, and if the stone is rolling you're doing it wrong. But if hashtags are any measure of celebrity, then curling is having what fashion types call “a moment”.

The tag #curlingiscool began trending on social media during the Winter Olympics, but with the Paralympics due to start in Pyeonchang on Thursday it doesn't show any sign of letting up. Even wrestler and actor Mr has T joined the bonspiel love-in. “Curling is cool,” he tweeted ahead of the men's final, which the United States won. “I Pity The Fool who don't like Curling. Grrr”.

Elsewhere social media users have thrilled at the sport's pleasingly ornate lexicon, sent meme after meme gliding into the Twittersphere, and turned curlers such as bespectacled Kim Eun-jung, skip of South Korea's so-called “Garlic Girls”, into unlikely cult heroes.

One curling obsessive has even knitted a mini-curling stone and posted pictures of it online – complete with a toothbrush for a broom. Opticians Specsavers got into the act with a special TV ad – oh, and there's now also an official Curling Is Cool Day: February 23.

Happily this new-found enthusiasm for curling is making its presence felt in the real world as well as the virtual one. There are 630 curling clubs in Scotland with around 12,000 members, and a further 3000 to 5000 people curl on a regular basis at the 23 Scottish ice rinks which provide curling facilities. And those numbers are fast rising. Innovative promotional events such as October's CurlFest have done their bit to increase the sport's profile but it's the Try Curling sessions which have been the real success. This scheme provides for around 3000 people to try the sport for the first time and this year it has been massively oversubscribed, according to Bruce Crawford, Chief Executive Officer of Scottish Curling.

“We always get a spike around the Olympics and the commentators during the Olympics mentioned our Try Curling site, so we had a lot of interest and that has translated into a lot of people booking into the sessions. So there's been a huge surge in people playing and having a go.

"There are sessions the length and breadth of Scotland that have been sold out. I know at Braehead they've had to get in extra staff and volunteer coaches to try to cope with the volume of people who want to play.”

Crawford was in Pyeongchang for the Winter Olympics and describes the atmosphere in the curling arena as “phenomenal”. Even more exciting from his point of view is the momentum he sees growing behind the sport thanks to the enthusiasm with which the South Koreans embraced it and – because every cloud has a silver lining – by the fact that it was the Americans who took gold in the men's competition.

“For a country that's not really very familiar with it, the Koreans really got behind the sport. They loved it. It was particularly helped by the Korean women's team playing brilliantly well and getting into the final. Also the American men winning a gold medal helped. America has a lot of control over things like social media and the proliferation of information, so I've got a feeling that the sport will be moved to a new level by the American success.

"Although we're all disappointed with the outcome for our team, nobody more so than the players [Britain won gold in 2002 under skip Rhona Martin], there's a huge amount of interest that will be garnered worldwide. We're already talking to new companies about sponsorship and things.”

Television may show more interest now as well. The games themselves witnessed an exponential growth in total audience streaming figures for the BBC, with 22.2 million views across the BBC Sport and BBC iPlayer platforms. That's nearly four times the previous record, which was 6.2 million streams for the 2014 Sochi games.

And in large part it was curling that did it: the second most popular day for streams was February 18, when the British men took on Italy in the curling, and the most-watched video clip of all was a compilation of “super skip” Eve Muirhead's best moments – including the now legendary “peach of a shot” which helped take the British women into the semi-final.

One person who's experiencing the boom close up is Colin Campbell. He's a member of Gogar Park Curling Club in Edinburgh and also works part-time as an ice technician at Murrayfield Ice Rink in Edinburgh, where around 70 curling clubs play their matches.

“We've seen a lot of people phoning up and wanting to try our taster sessions,” he says. “Every year you get an interest in curling, but since the Winter Olympics it has been going absolutely crazy. The phones are ringing off the hook at the rink at the moment because there's that much interest from people wanting to come along and give it a go.”

There has been a change in the type of people taking up the sport recently too, he says. Many more businesses are showing an interest – what better way to foster team-building skills? – and there are also more young families turning up.

“There are a lot of parents aged around 30 or 40 who have kids of 10 or older who want to come along. The whole family will come and try it as a group.”

The hoped-for end result of all this is a growth in take-up for the sport.

“We don't get a lot of coverage for curling outwith the Olympics. In between there's the World Championships and the European Championships and you get a little bit of coverage, but not very much. So hopefully it will build an interest in the sport and that will increase the TV coverage and media coverage, and that will get younger people along. And it's a sport for any age. You can curl from eight to 89.”

Even Murrayfield Ice Rink's marketing manager Evie Chamberlain has caught the curling bug. The 35-year-old American took up curling just six months ago but notes that even in her home state of Virginia – not a place generally associated with winter sports – there is now a curling club.

“I like it for the community,” she says. “It's a great way to get to know people and it's a fun activity. It's also a lot harder than it looks from a distance. When people come in for our Try Curling sessions, they're surprised at how much core strength and endurance you need.”

Like Campbell, Chamberlain has noticed “a big bump” in the number of people showing an interest in curling and is in no doubt that it's down to the Olympics.

“On the form they fill out when they sign up people frequently say 'Olympics' in the 'How Did You Hear About Us?' section. So there's a pretty direct connection between people watching curling on TV and messaging us to see if they can come into the rink.”

Keeping them coming season after season will be the sport's next challenge. But it's a challenge Chamberlain thinks curling has the qualities to meet.

“People are very much interested in unique experiences and curling has that going for it – we're something just a bit different,” she says.

So is curling really cool?

“I think it is,” she laughs. “People are realising it's quite a quirky sport. And once Mr T is tweeting about you, you can consider yourself cool.”