Televised Curling in the United States!

Previewing the 2025 TCG All-Star Game, coming this week to a television near you!

Surprise, it’s a bonus newsletter! We’re taking a quick break from grassroots curling to preview some of the best curlers in the world hitting the ice in Nashville. The 2025 TCG All-Star Game is coming to your television screens this week, including the United States!

It’s not often that we get curling on TV south of the border, especially after ESPN decided to stop carrying the Brier and Scotties on ESPN3 a couple years ago, but the winds are continuing to shift in our favor.

The Curling Group announced that the first ever TCG All-Star Game will not only be broadcast on Sportsnet in Canada on July 1st, but it will also be broadcast in the US on FanDuel Sports Network (and on the FanDuel Sports Network app) on Thursday, July 3rd at 11am ET.

My message to American readers is simple: tune in. We rarely get curling on television in the US, take advantage of the opportunities to turn the channel to our favorite sport.

I had the opportunity to get a sneak peek of the All-Star Game, and in a time where most the All-Star Games of professional sports often miss the mark, I think The Curling Group got this one right.

Was it the best curling match of all time? No, but I don’t think that’s the point of an All-Star Game either. These events are less about showcasing the sport, and more about showcasing the best athletes in that sport in a fun way. And that’s where I think this broadcast hit the nail on the head.

It was so much fun and included a number of moments that made me truly laugh out loud. Sorry not sorry to my wife who was watching TV in the next room.

Fantastic shots? Check.

Chirping? Oh yes.

Rivals on the same team? Got that too.

Often opponents in Scotties finals, Emma Miskew and Kerri Einarson teamed up in Nashville. Photo: The Curling Group

My only criticism is that the broadcast felt a little too short. You won’t see every rock thrown, and there are tastes of some of the other events from the weekend that I wish I could have seen. That is, however, the unfortunate reality of televised curling: viewers don’t get to see everything, but what we did get to see was worth the time.

I thought Matt Hamilton put it well when he said it was a “better version of the Continental Cup” on the most recent Broom Brothers podcast. It was a blast to watch, and I can only imagine how much fun it would have been to see live in Nashville.

Here are some of the highlights you have to look forward to by tuning into the broadcast:

Great serious curling with light-hearted fun

In normal curling games where players are mic’d up, you can see some of the team dynamic, but the high stakes often result in limited engagement between the curlers on the two teams. I think that’s why we soak up moments like Team Tirinzoni showing up to post-game drinks with Team Homan in Homan Empire gear. Curling is an incredibly personal sport where we hear all the curlers strategy and thought process, but we rarely get to see the inter-team camaraderie off the ice.

Matt Dunstone and Rachel Homan share a laugh. There were plenty of smiles to be seen on the broadcast. Photo: The Curling Group

The All-Star Game featured so many moments where the best curlers in the game offered us a window into their personalities as we get to hear so many of the quips exchanged between players. We get everything from some fun drama over an alleged hog line violation to one player getting eviscerated for their line calling.

And yet, when Rachel Homan or Kerri Einarson step into the hack to throw a shot, you see that same look in their eyes we’ve seen in so many finals. The curling is great, and the banter is right on par.

A format that is both fresh and familiar

As with the Battle of the Sexes matchup between Team Homan and Team Mouat, the All-Star Game is an 8-end skins game with some fun twists. The lineups change throughout the course of the game, so you get to see everyone on the ice and some movement in positions throughout the game. An added bonus: some of the skips get to show their sweeping prowess.

The beauty of an All-Star Game: Sofia Mabergs and Ross Whyte sweeping a Colton Flasch stone. Photo: The Curling Group

I also really enjoyed the idea of the coaches being a little more involved in the game as both Johnny Mo and Matt Hamilton alluded to in the Broom Brothers podcast. It reminded me a little bit of Hamilton and Jennifer Jones talking with teams during breaks at last fall’s Everest North American Curling Club Championship event with the addition of some extra banter between teams. It is a fun element, and I have a hard time believing there would have been any more charismatic choices as coaches.

The game format also features progressive skins in each end and one other twist which can result in one player not throwing two shots in an end. The format as a whole is simultaneously fresh with fun twists and yet very familiar.

Post-break features

I would recommend not straying too far from your television during ad breaks, because the content outside of the game is well worth it. Throughout the broadcast, we’re treated with on-ice interviews with the coaches and players as well as some brief off-ice short clips from their time in Nashville.

Some of the most entertaining moments came during mid-game interviews. Matt Hamilton. Photo: The Curling Group

Chats with sports stars, watching the All Stars take on a mechanical bull, and the review of the Skills Competition were all wildly entertaining. I won’t go into detail about my favorite feature in the whole thing, but I have a feeling readers of this newsletter will know which one topped my list once they see the broadcast.

All in all, I can’t help but feel like the event was a total success, and hopefully we see it event come back in the future.

The curling was, as always, good, but the curlers at the TCG All-Star game made the event a great one.

A great season to watch curling in the US

Not only do we rarely get televised curling in the United States, but even more rare are events held here for the best curlers in the world. In the past decade, the only place where the best of the best have all descended on the United States has been Las Vegas.

All of which makes this is a big year. The All-Star Game was held in Nashville, a Slam is coming to Lake Tahoe in November, and the World Men’s Championship is being held in Ogden, Utah in the spring.

Without leaving the country, we get the chance to see Homan, Mouat, Gim, Edin, Tirinzoni, Jacobs, and the list goes on. I hope there is a huge attendance at the Olympic Trials in Sioux Falls, but I also hope to have the chance to run into big crowds when I make the drive to Tahoe and Ogden.

Hopefully this is a sign of more events to come to the United States in the future, but for this season, I hope we can show out and celebrate the amazing curlers coming here to show us what they can do.

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