Team USA did their job in Cortina. Now it’s time to do our job here at home.
While I wouldn’t blame members of Team USA for disagreeing with me, I think it’s reasonable to say that the way the Olympics turned out was a nearly ideal scenario for curling clubs in the USA.
Early in the Olympics, the USA won a medal, generating more interest and buzz around the sport for the television audience.
The young men’s team with a bright future finished just one game out of the playoffs.
Our women’s team matched the best performance by an American women’s team at the Olympics (and beat Canada in an Olympics matchup for the first time ever).
A major controversy happened, and the United States wasn’t involved, making the sport go even more viral than usual during the Olympics.
Media attention, success, and conversation all sparked by the Olympics. And we’re not done! The Paralympics start today (March 4th) so keep your Peacock subscriptions and tune into the Paralympics for more Team USA curling. World Curling has full schedules and results for wheelchair curling at the Paralympic Winter Games.
But now is when the responsibility shifts to you, the club members, the volunteers, and the veterans of the sport. I’ve heard of clubs setting records with online traffic partnered with hundreds (and in some cases, thousands) of signups for learn to curl events. San Francisco Bay Area Curling Club, for example, is essentially at capacity for all of their upcoming Try Curling events, and is seeing registrations already for June.
People are coming through your doors ready and eager to learn. For clubs with beginner leagues or instructor leagues that are starting now, you have brand new curlers who were interested enough to invest their time, their energy, and their money with you.
We saw the passion from Cory Thiesse, Korey Dropkin, Tara Peterson, and Aidan Oldenburg in Cortina. Now it’s time for you to share your passion with the new wave of prospective curlers coming into your building. Make them feel welcome. Make them feel at home. Help them know that the sport of curling extends beyond the houses and hacks and show everyone that the sport continues into the warm room and, ultimately, into the community.
Club Playdowns Results
Pacific Northwest
Women’s Champion: Mariano (Granite Curling Club of Seattle)
Women’s Runner-Up: Schneider (Evergreen Curling Club)
The final playdown of the Club National Championship was the Pacific Northwest region, hosted once again by Granite Curling Club in Seattle. Five women’s teams competed in the event, and after the round robin, Sheila Mariano and Kelsey Schneider were tied with a 3-1 record.
The Pacific Northwest ran the event with the two-loss provision in place, meaning the two 3-1 teams would have a rematch as a de facto final. Mariano won the first matchup 10-7, and the winner-take-all game came down to an intense finish. Tied after six ends, Evergreen’s Kelsey Schneider stole two in the 7th end, but Mariano responded back with a score of two in the 8th end to force an extra.
In the extra end, the Granite rink was able to get a rock on the button and a center guard covering it up on lead stones. Schneider’s team came close to getting shot rock multiple times, including on a come-around tap attempt with the hammer, but Mariano’s stone stuck around to earn the steal in the extra end. With that win, they punched their ticket to Chaska later this month.
Men’s Champion: Bond (Granite Curling Club of Seattle)
Seven teams battled for the final spot at the men’s national championships in the Pacific Northwest regional playdowns. One team from Evergreen Curling Club made the drive up to Seattle to join the six Seattle teams for a round robin event.
Reigning champions, Team Bond, had to fight for every inch in their title defense. They got off to a bumpy start, losing their first game of the event, and the tough slog was just beginning. Last year’s national 4th place finishers bounced back by grinding out 1-point victories in their next two games before settling in and winning the remainder of their games with a little more breathing room.
The event didn’t run without controversy, however. Possibly the biggest curling scandal in the month of February transpired during the 5th draw. I’ll leave it to @broomstack on Instagram to tell the story.
Give me more if this kind of content in my social media algorithm, please and thank you.
5-and-Under Qualifier Results
Heather 5-and-Under (Mapleton, MN)
Winner: Vig (Fargo-Moorhead Curling Club)
Runner-Up: Cradick (Curling Club of Rochester)
Twenty teams made the trek to the Curling Capital of Minnesota (please Minnesotans, don’t come after me, I’m just quoting the signs they have around town) for the Heather Curling Club’s 5-and-Under qualifier early in February.
Vig has taken advantages of the many 5U qualifiers around the country over the past few years and was finally able to capitalize on the opportunity in Mapleton. Both Zach Vig and Ryan Cradick went undefeated in pool play to advance to the final, but the final was all Team Vig.
The North Dakota rink stole three points in the first end, yielded two in the second, and never looked back as they cruised to an 11-2 victory to earn their spot at the 5U national championship in April.
Portage Five-and-Under (Portage, WI)
Winner: Elliott (Nashville, St. Paul Curling Clubs)
Runner-Up: Gumz (Madison, Portage Curling Clubs)
A number of 5U qualifiers held thus far in 2026 have seen a rising number of teams withdraw from the events, creating some challenges for bonspiel hosts. Without having any specific knowledge for the teams at these events, I wouldn’t be shocked if some of these registration challenges are coming from teams backing out who had already qualified — an issue USA Curling is aware of. With teams backing out of the Portage event, they ended up moving to a 20-team pool play event, similar to Mapleton’s qualifier.
Chris Elliott has played with multiple lineup configurations this year, but he teamed up with other members of Nashville and St. Paul Curling Clubs once again and made the final against Jacalynn Gumz, who had already qualified earlier this season in Stevens Point. The two teams made it into the playoffs as the 6th and 7th seeds out of group play and navigated the quarterfinals and semis to meet for the championship game.
The Gumz rink just missed a double for a big score in the first end to give up a steal of one, and Elliott raced out to a five-point lead after stealing two in the second. Elliott’s rink would never look back as they snagged their ticket to 5U nationals, a return trip for both Chris Elliott and David Betzold, who each skipped a team last year in St. Paul.
Elisabeth Childs Challenge (Durham, NC)
Winner: Sharp (Potomac & Broomstones Curling Clubs)
Runner-Up: Krebs (Philadelphia Curling Club)
The Elisabeth Childs Challenge is a women’s only 5U qualifier, limited to clubs in the Grand National Curling Club region. The qualifier always has a full field, and this year 24 teams competed in a bracket-style event at Triangle Curling Club to claim one of the women’s team slots at nationals.
Jackie Sharp’s rink is made up of three curlers who had already qualified for nationals on separate teams, and their fourth had curled at 5U nationals last year on yet another team. They put together an awfully talented rink for this women’s event and found themselves facing Katie Krebs from Philadelphia Curling Club who had come through the opposite side of the bracket.
Team Sharp flexed their collective muscles in the final, putting unrelenting pressure on the Krebs rink. Sharp earned the win, and what they do next will be interesting to see. If the team decides to go to nationals with three of the four members (assuming Parira goes with the Potomac team she skipped to a qualifier victory earlier this year), then the team that won the GNCC mixed event (the Kayser) with Josh Dei would not head to 5U nationals.
On the bright side, if they decide to do this, due to existing registration numbers, it looks like that would put the runner-up from the Kayser into nationals. As for the teammates they had already qualified with earlier this season, well, they had a good weekend too.
Francis W. Dykes Five-and-Under
(Ardsley, NY / Bridgeport, CT)
Winner: Dei (Potomac Curling Club)
Runner-Up: Tygert (Albany Curling Club)
The GNCC’s men’s 5U championship, the Francis W. Dykes, is a long-running bonspiel that is routinely highest attended 5U event in the country. While the size can make it difficult to run as one event, especially when it is selected as a qualifier for the USA Curling-sanctioned 5U championship, this year two clubs managed to co-host the event and come out with a distinct winner.
Ardsley and Nutmeg Curling Clubs each hosted seeding pools at their respective clubs for the 48-team bonspiel to rank teams into different brackets. After seeding games were completed, the top two brackets curled out of Ardsley with the other two brackets finalized play at Nutmeg.
The final saw Josh Dei, whose teammates won the Childs Challenge in North Carolina, take on Keith Tygart from Albany. Both teams played their seeding pool games at Ardsley, and they were fortunate enough to stick at Ardsley for the rest of the weekend.
It was a tightly contested final, with Tygert taking a 6-5 lead through five ends, but Dei got a measure to go his way for a score of two in the sixth end and stole a point in the seventh before running the Albany rink out of rocks in the 8th.
With these results, Dei has now qualified with two different teams, as did his teammates Sharp and Hornlein. I will keep myself tuned in to hear what path they decide for their trips to Seattle in April!
Update: I missed the fact that Josh Dei’s team at the Dykes consisted of Elvis and Ezra of Team Parira, who had already qualified in Fort Wayne. Essentially, the two mixed teams created a men’s and a women’s team, and won those respective qualifiers! Congratulations to these teams on the impressive accomplishment. I’ll post more about the teams who end up qualifying for nationals as a result of these curlers’ success in my 5U nationals previews!
Coming Up Next
Championship season is in full swing. In addition to the Paralympics, the World Women’s Curling Championship are coming up soon in Calgary, and the World Men’s Curling Championship is going to be right here in the United States at the end of this month. If you’re going to be coming to Ogden, Utah to see the final event for Chris Plys and Colin Hufman of Team Shuster, please don’t be afraid to say hello!
Next on deck for this newsletter will be the previews of the club national championships, held in Chaska, Minnesota, and starting on March 25th.
We’re just over a month away from the season wrapping up, but there is still so much curling to watch, and for many of you: a lot of curling to teach to all of the newcomers to the Roaring Game.
Want more curling content? You might be interested in my December Rock Channel feature on the origin story of Team Hebert. Fun fact: Chris Plys told me in September he thought they could be the first USA team to win a gold at World Juniors since he won it in 2008. As of this week, Chris was absolutely correct.
Until next time, good curling!
Stones & Stripes 
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