WDET News
- Detroit Curling Club Shares History
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Nov 13, 2008General - Link to Audio
Detroit is often referred to as Hockeytown, but another ice sport also has a rich history in the Metro area. WDET’s Rob St. Mary explains.
(click the audio link above to hear the feature)
It’s fair to say most people on the U.S. side of the Detroit River were introduced to curling thanks to a pair of antenna, the rabbit-ear kind, attached to their television sets.
"The final rock of the tenth end. Hackner must kill both Alberta stones and save the shooter… is he going to… he’s going to get a piece of it… he’s got it! (CHEERS!)”
The transmissions emanating over the border from Canadian Broadcasting Corporation illuminated this shuffleboard-like ice sport featuring people sliding a large stone and then sweeping the path in front of it towards a bull’s-eye over 100 feet away. It had always been an enjoyable mystery to Kathy Cross.
“Every weekend, during the curling season, I would watch with my family… always sort of sparked my interest. I wanted to know more about it. Finally, I got to my mid-30s and I said you know what… this is something I really have to try. I have to give it a whirl.”
And Cross’ curiosity not only improved her sport life but her love life as well… once she met fellow curler Ryan Fletcher at the Detroit Curling Club.
“We had met on a team and got to know each other just a little bit better and then, true love.”
And the couple says out on the ice, like in marriage, it’s all about teamwork.
“Balancing on one foot as you slide down the ice with a Teflon sole on your foot between that and even the sweeping… it’s a challenge. The sweeping is a lot harder than most people realize. You see people of all ages and shapes out there but the sweeping is the one thing the really equalizes everybody because it puts a beating on you because that’s a lot of ice that needs to be swept.”
(Sounds of the ice.)
And on the cold side of the glass, team captain or Skip, as they are called in the curling world, Dallas Schneider says it’s true… good broom handling is essential to winning.
“Two good sweepers will be able to carry a stone 12 to 14 feet further than you threw it. And that’s significant when you start considering that these rings are 12-feet in diameter, very significant. Then you can either put it up front or put it right back here in the back percisley where you need… very important part of the game.”
Club President LeRoy Bliven says being able to put the rock where you want it sets up the scoring.
“You score by the center of your circle, the button is where you start the score from. You get one point for every rock that you have of your color that’s closer to that circle than your opponent.”
And the best you can do is what’s called an eight-ender.
“You can score a maximum of eight points. An eight ender is very difficult to do. It’s probably more difficult than a hole in one in golf, where all your shots in one end are counters and all your opponents are not.”
Bliven says over the years the rules of curling have been updated, but one thing stays constant, the club’s history. The Detroit Curling Club was officially founded in 1885 when men took to the ice on the Detroit River in the winter. But he says the origins of his club go back even further… marking Metro Detroit’s place in the curling history books.
“It’s one of the oldest, if not the oldest, continuously run curling club in the states. Our fore brothers before us curling on Orchard Lake, if you add them to the mix, we would be the oldest. They weren’t curling directly out of an organization called the Detroit Curling Club but that dates back to the early 1830s and that would put us as one of the oldest facilities in the US.”
Over the last six-years, the Detroit Curling Club has been based out of a neighborhood center near Nine Mile and Hilton in Ferndale where the roar of 42-pound granite stones sliding over ice is a nightly event.
“Our area was just in the Curling News, the Great Lakes Region is the fasting growing region in the country.”
Bliven says the recent additions include new clubs in Kalamazoo, Port Huron and Indianapolis.
With about 270 members, he says the Detroit club has grown since curling became an official Olympic sport about ten-years ago. Bliven says his club has seen new members, young and old, who have taken a local community education program in curling.
One of the veterans at the Detroit Curling Club is Chuck Thomas. He says the sport is great because it allows him to compete against his three sons, even though he’s 76 years old. Thomas calls it a mental game, like Chess on ice. Over his 35-years of curling Thomas has a chance to battle the best of them.
“I curled against the United States champion, first game of the year, and were fortunate enough to win. And there’s no spots in this game like there is in other sports… it’s one against one. So, I guess that proves on any given day anyone can win.”
And another 38-year-veteran of the club and former US Mens Senior Champion Dallas Schneider says there’s room for those who want to reach high levels in the sport.
“If you want to preserve, and put in the time, practice, throw a lot of stones, you can progress to at least playoff positions and even get to the Olympics. I went by my prime and I played in three Mens US nationals.”
Schneider says if you want Olympic Gold, you can get there…
"This requires two-hours, two-and-a-half hours of constant concentration. You cannot let up if you want to play at that level. If you want to come out here and have some fun, it’s a perfect game for anybody. Perfect. Because that’s mostly what club curling is. It’s fun, competitive to a point but the most important thing is the social issue. And you won’t find a bad person in this group. They’re just super.”
And after the game, the bragging and backslapping starts as curlers put down their rocks and brooms and bend their elbows on the warm side of the glass… even those who have been watching like Club President LeRoy Bliven.
“That’s just the wonderful part of it. It keeps everybody excited out there and there’s always a lot of what if-ing. You come back after the game and nobody on the warm side of the glass has ever missed a shot… they can tell you exactly what you did wrong. It’s kind of the nature of this game is to stand up here and watch.”
But in the end, Bliven says the members of the Detroit Curling Club realize something fundamental… whether you are on the ice or watching the game on TV.
“It’s just a fun watching someone else make a great shot as when you throw it.”
I’m Rob St. Mary – WDET News