West Newsmagazine 2-7-18

44 I COVER STORY I
February 7, 2018
WEST NEWSMAGAZINE
@WESTNEWSMAG
WESTNEWSMAGAZINE.COM
Creve Coeur club offers would-be athletes chance to
‘sweep, slide, throw’ in Olympic-style
By JESSICA MESZAROS
Of all the sports set to grace television
screens as part of the upcoming 2018
Winter Olympics, only one of them has the
distinction of being known as “chess on
ice.” That sport involves a sheet of ice, a
polished stone weighing about 40 pounds
and brooms.
It’s also called “The Roaring Game”
because of the sound made by the stones as
they move down the ice. But you probably
know it simply as “curling.”
“Curling is often referred to as ‘chess on
ice’ because there is a lot of
strategy involved but, unlike
chess, things don’t always
go as you plan in curling,”
curler Flannery Allison said.
The sport began as a form
of documented recreation
in 16th century Scotland.
Today, it has a notable local
following with participants
from West County, St.
Charles County and even
small towns in Illinois gathering
at the Creve Coeur Ice
Arena each week.
The St. Louis Curling Club [SLCC]
began in 2010 when founder Nancy Rogers
gathered about 10 members at an arena in
Fairview Heights, Illinois. Its current roster
consists of about 70 competing curlers. Its
new home, off Olde Cabin Road in Creve
Coeur, is the result of one woman’s determination.
“... around 2012, the Fairview Heights
ice rink there closed,” explained current
president Becca Walters. “It was built on
top of a mine and started to collapse.”
Walters, who curled in Seattle for about
eight years before relocating to St. Louis,
added that she began looking for a St.
Louis home for the curling club “before I
even moved here, and Creve Coeur said we
could use their ice to curl.” But between
the rink collapse and the relocation, a
14-month hiatus occurred.
According to curler Joe VanArtsdalen,
the club managed to officially reform at
its new Creve Coeur location around 2014,
thus missing the rush of interest from the
Vancouver and Sochi Winter Olympics.
Not so this year.
When curlers take to the ice in
PyeongChang for the XXIII Winter Olympic
Games [Feb. 9-25], the club will be
open and offering lessons.
“We were around in
2014, but this is our first
Olympic season as an
official club,” VanArtsdalen
said. “So this
is a really fun time for
people to really get into
curling.”
Curling debuted as a
medal sport in the 1998
Winter Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan.
As of 2017, about 1.5 million people curl
in 33 different countries, according to the
St. Louis Curling Club.
The game involves players using strength
and dexterity to slide stones on a sheet of
ice toward a target area. The team’s captain,
also known as the skip, offers advice
on where and how to aim the stone. Teams
take turns sliding the stones, which can
range in weight from 38 to 44 pounds,
down the ice and toward a circular target
known as the house. Points are scored for
the stones resting closest to the center of
the house. The objective is to score the
highest number of points.
Each time a curler throws the stone, two
sweepers accompany it and sweep the ice
as the stone moves down the sheet, thus
altering factors like direction, friction and
speed without directly touching the stone.
“It’s more difficult than you think,” curler
Irene Hasegawa said. “It surprises people,
but you can also learn how to play just by
watching the game.”
According to curler Jim Winslade, the
sport is based highly on elements of accuracy,
precision and communication among
team members. The sport also has an element
of unpredictability that keeps players
on their toes.
Curling shoes feature sleek discs
to help players slide on the ice.
Curlers Darel Shelton and Irene Hasegawa sweep a stone as it curls down
the ice.
[Jessica Meszaros photos]
Unlike other sports, curling doesn’t have
set positions, meaning players have to be
proficient at sweeping the ice and throwing
stones.
“One of the most common misconceptions
[comes when] people ask ‘what
position do you play?’ They ask, ‘Are
you a sweeper?’ or ‘Do you throw stones?’
Everyone throws two stones and gets to
sweep, and the skip’s job is incredibly
important,” VanArtsdalen said.
According to Walters, the club already
has seen a spike in membership since relocating
to the Creve Coeur location.
“When I started with the club around
three-and-a-half years ago, they only had
about 15 members and only had one set of
stones that someone had given us a loan to
buy, and we were renting another set from
Wisconsin,” Walters said. “We now have
two sets of children stones and five sets
of adult ones, so we can have five games
going at once.”
Due to local interest, the club is holding
multiple classes and events in the coming
weeks for those who would like to test their
knack for curling. The Learn to Curl events
will take place at the Creve Coeur
Ice Arena through March
with additional events
possible in April
depending on popularity.
The goal is
to teach the basics
of the game,
including stone
delivery, sweeping,
strategy and
scoring. Participants
also will take
part in a short game.
“We are expecting a big turnout,” Steve
Young, SLCC vice president, said. “We
already have people signed up for sessions
going into early March.”
There are over 15,000 curlers in over 135
clubs in the United States. SLCC’s members
span a variety of ages, backgrounds
and skill levels. According to Winslade, a
lot of members have between zero to three
years of experience.
“We do lose members from time to time,
but we’ve also attracted a lot of new people
that have just jumped in with both feet and
have never curled before and find that they
like it, and away they go,” Winslade said.
Allison added, “As far as St. Louis goes,
there’s a pretty wide variety of curlers.
Especially in our leagues, a lot of people
have never curled before. For most people,
it’s ‘I saw this on the Olympics and I want
to try it.’ That is 90 percent of people.”
With continued growth, the club is hoping
to be able to secure its own dedicated ice.
The Creve Coeur Ice Arena, which usually
is used for events like hockey, is not
regulated for curling due to elements like
its slightly bowl-shaped structure. The club
also has to go out prior to practices and
leagues to make their own marks on the
ice, something that would not be necessary
with dedicated curling ice.
“Our biggest challenge is working with
the ruts created by hockey skates and
figure skates,” Young said. “Zambonis can
sometimes do the job, but any ridges and
valleys in the ice are still enough to make
the stone curl in funny ways.”
According to Allison, the hardest part of
the club’s current and ongoing search for
an ice facility is finding a structure that
meets regulation measurements, including
a length of at least 190 feet.
“It’s very specific and that’s the issue,”
Allison said. “Warehouses tend to be very
big, but that’s not really an issue for our
club outside of the financial side.
Bigger buildings are more
expensive, but we’re
still actively searching
for a