April 20, 2023 at 8:54 a.m.
No stone left unturned
Facebook post leads to interest in establishing curling club in the area
No stone left unturned
The seeds were planted this past Sunday as a group looking to establish a curling club in Rhinelander hosted a learn to curl event at the Rhinelander Ice Arena. The event was well-received, with both two-plus hour sessions filling up weeks in advance, prompting organizers to set up another event for next Saturday, April 29.
"This is pretty impressive that we've got 64 people coming to curl. That's a lot," said Terri Gleason of Tomahawk, who helped put together the event.
It was the brainchild of Erik Berth of Rhinelander who, thanks to some social media marketing, was able to tap into the greater Wisconsin curling community to get his idea off the ground.
"I went out and tried it in Minnesota. My sister was on a team and I thought it was kind of cool," he said.
That prompted Berth to put out a few feelers on his personal Facebook page to gauge the interest of potentially getting a curling club established in the area. He said he got a few nibbles, enough to where he created a "Rhinelander Curling Club" page on Facebook.
That page caught the attention of a number of curlers from around the area who currently curl at the Wausau Curling Club, including Gleason.
"Years ago we were talking that we need something in Rhinelander. Wausau is the furthest north," she said. "We wanted to do this and we see on Facebook somebody puts 'Rhinelander Curling Club opening soon.' We're like, 'What? Who's doing that? Where were we?' We reached out to Erik and he goes I just wanted it out there to see if I could get any interest. I said, 'Well, you piqued five people right here that want this also.'"
Several members of the Wausau Curling Club offered to lend a hand, including Scott O'Keefe, who previously worked for USA Curling and served as a board member for the United States Curling Association.
"A few of us who are in the know saw that and we were all on the same page immediately," he said. "We are heavily involved in the curling world and we know how to help Erik get a club going."
On March 23, exactly one month after the Rhinelander Curling Club page was created, it advertised its first learn to curl event. The response, so far has been overwhelmingly positive.
"I was excited, because I wasn't sure what this was going to be like," he said. "I didn't know the ins and outs of curling. We got public interest in it, but also the veterans that no how to do this in the first place and can help set it up."
Gleason noted that several clubs from around the state either sent volunteers or lent equipment for the event. The stones themselves, which Gleason said retail at $5,000 for a set of eight, where provided by USA Curling.
For the uninitiated, curling is a sport which roots can be traced back to 16th-century Scotland. It involves teams of two or four sliding heavy, polished granite stones toward a circular target, called the house, at the other end of the ice. The object is to get as many stones as close to the center of the house - called the button - as possible. One person on the team throws, while others sweep the ice to help guide the stone to the target. Each team will throw eight stones in a round, called an end. The team with the "shot stone" - the one that finishes closest to the button - scores one point for each stone it has in the house and closer to the button than its opponent's best stone. A typical game consists of 8 to 10 ends.
Curling has been part of the Winter Olympics since 1998 with Team USA taking the gold medal in the men's tournament in the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. That team was captained, or skipped in curling parlance, by Duluth's John Shuster.
Participants learned about these basics and more during Sunday's event. They learned about how to slide and throw the stone while coming out of the hack -track-like starting blocks at the opposite end of the ice from the target. They learned how to sweep the ice and played a mini-game to finish.
They also learned about the highly social aspects of the game afterward. "Broomstacking" followed the session, in which participants gathered inside the RIA's warming room for snacks, beverages and socialization.
"I want them to know that curling, it covers all ages. You never outgrow curling," Gleason said of the most important thing she wanted participants to take from the event. "You never age out of curling. You can start as a child and you can go all the way and end up with a stick at the end. You can do this your whole life. You make the best friends in curling. Curlers are kind, they're considerate. There's a lot of etiquette to the game and courtesy. You shake before, you shake after and then, after the game, you sit down together and you have cocktails or pop or snacks."
O'Keefe said how quickly Sunday's event filled up, and that there's demand for a follow up event, indicates there is an interest to see the sport take off in the Northwoods.
"First and foremost, it's getting people interested. He put up the learn to curls and they filled up right away, so definitely interest, which is very exciting," he said. "We'll see what comes out of it ... Hopefully we get people interested so that when fall comes around, we can get more people and then have some leagues."
Berth and Gleason both said that's the likely next step for the club. With the ice going out for the season at the Rhinelander Ice Arena next month, there likely will not be much more that takes place until the ice returns for the 2023-24 season this coming October. The aim is to form some leagues that could curl in October and April, normally slower times at the RIA for hockey and figure skating.
"We'll be able to put together at least some sort of a short one-month, two-month long league so that we can start building on it. Then again in the spring after hockey season is over," Berth said. "Everybody I've talked to so far, they're excited about it. They're happy that this is going on and hopes that it will continue."
Using the ice at the RIA is a starting point, but far from a permanent solution. In addition to competing for ice time with hockey and figure skating there is the matter of the curling ice itself, which differs from that of skating sports. For starters, the ice on a curling sheet is "pebbled."
Just as the term implies, a spritz of water is applied on top of the ice and allowed to set to create a pebbled texture, helping the stones glide down the sheet. Then there's the ice itself, which is perfectly flat on a curling sheet but may have slight deviations in thickness on a hockey rink.
"Curling on hockey ice is sometimes a struggle,"
O'Keefe explained. "You don't know what to expect because hockey ice, they don't require the level ice that we do on a dedicated sheet for curling. Some of these rocks we want to go this way and they go (the other) way because of the bumps in the ice."
Berth said the ultimate, long-term goal, would be to establish a dedicated curling facility in Rhinelander.
"There is some possibilities to be able to do that here at the ice arena in Rhinelander," he said. "We'll see. Time will tell and, of course, that's going to require an awful lot of funding, but that is my dream. That would be awesome." O'Keefe said doing so would help to serve an underserved potion of the state.
"Wisconsin's very established in curling. They have been for years and years. Most communities have one or one nearby," he said. "It's a hour drive to Wausau. Not that that's not doable, but you'd like to have something closer. This is kind of an area that, when a club gets build here, you can pull from Tomahawk, you can pull up from Minocqua, St. Germain, Eagle River, Three Lakes. You can definitely find the support for it."
For more information on the next learn to curl event, or the future of the Rhinelander Curling Club search for "Rhinelander Curling Club" on Facebook, or by contact Berth at 715-367-9353.
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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