Rhinelander Curling Club women’s team punches ticket to Nationals

Winner takes all. A one-game playdown decided who would go to Nationals. The Rhinelander Curling Club women’s team took the victory.

Rhinelander defeated the La Crosse Curling Club women’s team 7-6 on March 16 at the Eau Claire Curling Club. The win advanced Rhinelander to the Men’s and Women’s Arena Club National Championships held in Las Vegas in October.

“A lot of that scheduling was simply based on availability of the two teams — the Rhinelander team and the La Crosse women's team,” Rhinelander skip Jean Rice said. “It was partly my schedule was going to be limited after March 17 so the first two weekends in March were offered. The 16th was available in Eau Claire. The women did not do a playdown last year. The men did.”

The four-person team for Rhinelander includes Rice, vice Tykie Wescott, lead Judy Lehman and second Hannah Beeler.

“I had maybe 10 years of experience, but Tykie has curled since she was in her teens from the high school down in Lodi,” Rice said. “Her parents were very involved in the curling club there, and she indicates that there’s probably been a 20-year period where she didn’t curl much ... once she and her husband moved up north. She, again, has great experience and just brings just a good sense of the game to our team where Judy and Hannah both (are) good athletes in general so have taken to the game very well, very easily and have skills that are going to help our team represent Rhinelander well.”

Since Rhinelander and La Crosse are the only two curling clubs who play on arena ice, they automatically were set to face off against one another.

“It is only Rhinelander and La Crosse are teams that use arena ice. (We) share it with hockey and ice skating,” Rice said. “There are 28 curling facilities in Wisconsin — 26 other facilities have dedicated curling ice. That’s all that happens on that ice. Until two years ago, La Crosse was the only arena club in Wisconsin so automatically had a birth into this national arena championship.”

Rhinelander put the word out to form their women’s team.

“At this point in Rhinelander, it was kind of an open request — is anyone interested and available is part of it to be part of the women’s team? The men’s team was kind of established last year,” Rice said. “I believe maybe one player switched from last year’s group of men, but I foresee going forward that we will ask about interest in being part of that team early in the season and try and group those maybe four to six players together and come up with a team for future playoffs, but for this first one, it really came down to, ‘OK, here’s four ladies who are interested and available.’”

The men’s playdown featured a best-of-three series to determine who would go to Nationals. Due to time constraints, the women decided to play just one game on Sunday.

“I was OK with saying, ‘Let’s just do one game, one and done, and we’ll represent Rhinelander this first time and see what happens,’ and La Crosse accepted that,” Rice said. “I think they would’ve preferred doing it best-two-out-of-three-game match as well, but because of time restraints, and as curling clubs are wrapping up … for their seasons, there were limited options as far as who could host this kind of event. We went ahead with one game Sunday, the 16th of March, winner takes all.”

In the future, the women are looking at doing a best-of-three series like the men.

“We agreed to just do one and done because of limits on availability of neutral ice in our situation,” Rice said. “The men were able to use the Eau Claire facility both (on) Saturday night and then Sunday morning. We only had Sunday evening available to us and, again, with our life schedules, work schedules going into Monday wasn’t an option. There we had it. I’m sure future playoffs will be a best-two-out-of-three for both the men and women.”

La Crosse tied the game at 6-6 after seven ends.

“It was a very good match,” Rice said. “We managed to keep the lead or get the lead and stay ahead up until the seventh end. There are eight ends in a game. The La Crosse team came back and got three points in the seventh end to tie the game, which in a way is nice because we had one more end to go. One team is gonna win. We’re not gonna end up in a tie and have to go into extra ends.”

Rice had two more throws left. Her first throw succeeded and put Rhinelander in a great position.

“It came down to that last shot essentially,” Rice said. “I was able to get a rock into the center of the target closer to the button, which is that center point, than my opponent’s rocks were.”

La Crosse had the chance to answer. Their skip didn’t get the rock closer to the target than Rice’s, nor did she knock Rice’s shot out of position.

“The opposing skip for La Crosse had one more shot to try and get in closer or knock me out, and unfortunately she did not make that shot,” Rice said. “Rhinelander got the win without even having to throw my last shot.”

Rhinelander had punched their ticket to Nationals, a surprise to Rice and her teammates.

“You have to admit a bit of a surprise that we pulled off this win,” Rice said. “Having four gals play the match together who had never played together as a team prior to that. We had played in the — I’m gonna refer to the league — but it’s very loose at this point as a new club. We divvy up people to make four-person teams. I’ve played with, I think, each of those ladies maybe once in the course of the season but for the most part, we didn’t know each other real well as far as our playing skills, etc. I said, ‘OK, we’re gonna represent’ and came out with the win so pretty exciting, very exciting.”

Rice and Wescott came into the playdown with lots of curling experience. Lehman and Beeler are new to the sport.

“I think we’ll have a fifth as a sub to go to Nationals, but as a new club and lots of snowbirds this time of year, that was our challenge,” Rice said. “We ended up with two of us — I and Tykie Wescott — have curling experience behind us, but the other two gals — Judy Lehman and Hannah Beeler — brand new to curling as of this past year and a half to two years. They’re both showing pretty early in establishing our club, but it’s rather limited exposure to it since we only curl Sunday nights, Monday mornings. Those two are working gals. Sunday nights was their option, and I don’t believe they’ve been able to take part in much of any bonspiels or tournaments say for the practice. We came into this playoff with, again, some experience for those newbies, but ... we were taking a chance that we have enough knowledge of the game and can help each other through to make us represent Rhinelander and not come out totally embarrassed. That was the goal.”

Rice trusted that everyone would do their job in the biggest of moments.

“I have to admit I realized that I had this opportunity, and there was certainly a path down the ice that would allow me to get … the first of my two rocks, the end of the game, closer into the button or maybe nudge one of their rocks out of position,” Rice said. “That’s a shot that I feel pretty comfortable with and knew that the gals who would be sweeping are also pretty good at tracking the rock, and realizing, ‘Oh, it needs to be swept more or not’ whether the skip or I were indicating that. Our third is someone who is without a lot of experience, but again, I trusted that they’ve done it enough in this year and a half to two years of play that we could make the best of that opportunity, and indeed, we were able to help that rock end up in the center of the target just a bit closer than our opponent’s rock. Then the onus was on them to try and shift that position, and they came short of that, and that’s the game of curling.”

Rhinelander is excited to partake in the Men’s and Women’s Arena Club National Championships Oct. 14-19 at CurlVegas in Las Vegas . They’ll be joined by the Rhinelander men’s team, who also qualified back in March.

“Initially it was like ... ‘We pulled this off. That’s pretty amazing,’” Rice said. “And then send out the messages to friends and cohorts in the curling club and such and was like mostly a bit of disbelief to start with for myself. Excitement that we will be able to represent the newest curling club in Wisconsin at a national event going into a year with Winter Olympics coming up where curling will get plenty more exposure. The opportunity to interest more people to give curling a try is huge and to have the guys win as well — amazing. We will enjoy our time in Vegas — win, lose or draw.”

Research and practice will be important for Rice as she preps for Nationals. 

“(I’m) excited, a little nervous,” Rice said. “I was telling one of our cohorts, someone with lots of curling experience, that I had to start watching some of the curling events that are happening now on YouTube and such to kind of think about strategy of the play as the skip, that last of the foursome, but the one who directs your teammates what shot to make, I wanted to watch some of these high-level curling events and think about what’s the strategy in place in order to ultimately score at the end of each end. I’m feeling ... I will not even use the word pressure in a sense, but just feeling like I need to get my head on straight as far as thinking about the strategy of play because I’ve skipped occasionally in my past, but certainly very little in these last couple years. I’m one of the handful of members of the Rhinelander Curling Club that have some past experience and for me, it’s maybe 10 to 12 years prior to coming to Rhinelander. I curled just ladies league, some bonspiels, etc. At this point, I am off and helping with learn-to-curls or, again, just new curlers who just need some added instruction and help understanding the game, etc.”

Nationals is great exposure for the Rhinelander Curling Club. Coupled with the Winter Olympics coming next winter, curling is on the rise.

“We just have to offer the opportunity now,” Rice said. “We have to get the word out that indeed curling is something that you can come and try at the Rhinelander Ice Arena come October, November for sure of (2025) through the winter season. That’s been the surprise, I think, for a lot of the seasoned curlers who have found their way to Rhinelander in that region that there hasn’t been a curling club north of Wausau ever in Wisconsin. Now there is, and we’re happy to be getting this off the ground.”

Rice thanked those who made this experience possible.

“(I want to) thank the experienced curlers who were absolutely instrumental in getting the Rhinelander Curling Club started, for all their expertise, support and knowledge in getting our teams ready for the playoffs with La Crosse,” she said. “We are very blessed to have some amazing curlers as core members. Many of them are members of dedicated curling clubs as well, so are not eligible to be on the playoff teams for the arena ice tournament, thus, our foursome came to be.”

Brett LaBore may be reached at [email protected] or [email protected].