IF YOU GO
• 46th Annual Mixed Bonspiel
• Alpine Curling Club, 1319 31st Ave.
• Matches are 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday, Feb. 3, and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 4. Finals begin at 11 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 5, with bagpiper Michael Ganshert announcing the teams onto the ice.
• Spectators are welcome, and admission is free.
• Visit alpinecurlingclub.com for more info.
Camaraderie part of what makes curling special
By Katjusa Cisar
kcisar@ themonroetimes.com
MONROE - The Alpine Curling Club is hosting 16 teams from around the state and as far away as Indianapolis for its 46th Annual Mixed Bonspiel next weekend, Friday, Feb. 3 to Sunday, Feb. 5.
So, how are the Monroe curlers preparing? Dropping daily for 100 pushups? Fine-tuning game strategy or doing extra leg stretches to stay limber on the ice?
Nope. They're planning for a weekend-long potluck of epic proportions. Laid out on the counter in the kitchen of their clubhouse, located in a renovated hog barn on 31st Avenue, are detailed sign-up sheets for volunteers to bring food, including 8 pounds of Swiss cheese, 12 pies and hundreds of dessert bars.
Nearby is a tapper with beer available at all times - 75 cents a glass and $3 a pitcher for members, collected on the honor system.
To be fair, players in the roughly 100-member Monroe club won't be competing. The "bonspiel," the curling term for tournament, is an invitational for outside leagues and a moneymaker for the hosting club. But the level of hospitality that goes into it is a good indicator of just how important sportsmanship and camaraderie are in the egalitarian world of amateur curling.
Steve Johnson, who plays in a league on Tuesday nights, makes this analogy of curling matches: Even when the leagues facing off don't match in talent, and it's like a Parks and Rec softball team going up against Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers, everyone still gathers around a table afterward to share a meal.
"It's a tradition to sit down afterward to eat with the team you just played against," said Johnson, who has been curling for more than 25 years, in Monroe and in clubs in Eau Claire, Appleton and St. Paul, Minn.
Everyone is still in it to win it, said club president Eric Eckdhal, but sportsmanship is extremely important.
"If you're getting slaughtered, you can concede. You shake, and it's over. You call it good," he said. "The goal is not to humiliate your opponent, but everybody's here to win."
Opponents also shake hands before the game, which has origins in medieval Scotland. Curling is now played worldwide, but is most popular in Canada.
On a recent Monday, when the club hosts a regular league night for kids, member Terri Montgomery led a group of about eight middle and high school students onto the ice: "What's the first thing you're going to do when you get out there? Shake hands and say, 'Good curling.'"
Curling, very basically, is like shuffleboard on ice. One player starts a solid granite rock sliding down the sheet of ice toward a target. Then, depending on the rock's trajectory and speed, teammates furiously sweep the ice in front of the rock to make it slide farther or change direction. Points are awarded for the rocks closest to the target.
A rock typically weighs 38 to 44 pounds and looks like a big tea kettle. The granite they're carved from is rare, so they're worth about $600 to $1,200 each, according to Montgomery.
The Alpine Curling Club was founded in 1959 by an Appleton transplant named Edward Adam and has attracted players from all over Green County and northern Illinois.
Bob Rufi, 71 years old and a member since 1971, got "suckered" into serving as the club's icemaker a few years later and has done it annually since in preparation for the November-to-March curling season.
"It takes me about three weeks every fall," Rufi said. He sprays water five to six times every day during this time, gradually building up the surface. Unlike hockey ice, curling ice has to be perfectly flat.
As social and easy-going as the Monroe curlers are in the clubhouse, they're relatively serious on the ice. On an adult league night this week, the icehouse was chilly and quiet with concentration, except for frequent shouts to "Sweep!"
It's the camaraderie that keeps Rufi coming back decade after decade.
"You don't see fistfights or body-checking," he said. Other curling clubs in the state saw "people crawling up the walls" after the sport aired in the 2010 Winter Olympics, but Monroe's membership didn't increase. Rufi said he'd like to see more young people join.
The budding curlers in the Monday league sound ready to take him up on it. Attitude, they agreed, is what makes curling so great.
And if the team loses, said 11-year-old Kieran Bazley between bites of post-game pizza, "I just try to shake it off."
By Katjusa Cisar
kcisar@ themonroetimes.com
MONROE - The Alpine Curling Club is hosting 16 teams from around the state and as far away as Indianapolis for its 46th Annual Mixed Bonspiel next weekend, Friday, Feb. 3 to Sunday, Feb. 5.
So, how are the Monroe curlers preparing? Dropping daily for 100 pushups? Fine-tuning game strategy or doing extra leg stretches to stay limber on the ice?
Nope. They're planning for a weekend-long potluck of epic proportions. Laid out on the counter in the kitchen of their clubhouse, located in a renovated hog barn on 31st Avenue, are detailed sign-up sheets for volunteers to bring food, including 8 pounds of Swiss cheese, 12 pies and hundreds of dessert bars.
Nearby is a tapper with beer available at all times - 75 cents a glass and $3 a pitcher for members, collected on the honor system.
To be fair, players in the roughly 100-member Monroe club won't be competing. The "bonspiel," the curling term for tournament, is an invitational for outside leagues and a moneymaker for the hosting club. But the level of hospitality that goes into it is a good indicator of just how important sportsmanship and camaraderie are in the egalitarian world of amateur curling.
Steve Johnson, who plays in a league on Tuesday nights, makes this analogy of curling matches: Even when the leagues facing off don't match in talent, and it's like a Parks and Rec softball team going up against Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers, everyone still gathers around a table afterward to share a meal.
"It's a tradition to sit down afterward to eat with the team you just played against," said Johnson, who has been curling for more than 25 years, in Monroe and in clubs in Eau Claire, Appleton and St. Paul, Minn.
Everyone is still in it to win it, said club president Eric Eckdhal, but sportsmanship is extremely important.
"If you're getting slaughtered, you can concede. You shake, and it's over. You call it good," he said. "The goal is not to humiliate your opponent, but everybody's here to win."
Opponents also shake hands before the game, which has origins in medieval Scotland. Curling is now played worldwide, but is most popular in Canada.
On a recent Monday, when the club hosts a regular league night for kids, member Terri Montgomery led a group of about eight middle and high school students onto the ice: "What's the first thing you're going to do when you get out there? Shake hands and say, 'Good curling.'"
Curling, very basically, is like shuffleboard on ice. One player starts a solid granite rock sliding down the sheet of ice toward a target. Then, depending on the rock's trajectory and speed, teammates furiously sweep the ice in front of the rock to make it slide farther or change direction. Points are awarded for the rocks closest to the target.
A rock typically weighs 38 to 44 pounds and looks like a big tea kettle. The granite they're carved from is rare, so they're worth about $600 to $1,200 each, according to Montgomery.
The Alpine Curling Club was founded in 1959 by an Appleton transplant named Edward Adam and has attracted players from all over Green County and northern Illinois.
Bob Rufi, 71 years old and a member since 1971, got "suckered" into serving as the club's icemaker a few years later and has done it annually since in preparation for the November-to-March curling season.
"It takes me about three weeks every fall," Rufi said. He sprays water five to six times every day during this time, gradually building up the surface. Unlike hockey ice, curling ice has to be perfectly flat.
As social and easy-going as the Monroe curlers are in the clubhouse, they're relatively serious on the ice. On an adult league night this week, the icehouse was chilly and quiet with concentration, except for frequent shouts to "Sweep!"
It's the camaraderie that keeps Rufi coming back decade after decade.
"You don't see fistfights or body-checking," he said. Other curling clubs in the state saw "people crawling up the walls" after the sport aired in the 2010 Winter Olympics, but Monroe's membership didn't increase. Rufi said he'd like to see more young people join.
The budding curlers in the Monday league sound ready to take him up on it. Attitude, they agreed, is what makes curling so great.
And if the team loses, said 11-year-old Kieran Bazley between bites of post-game pizza, "I just try to shake it off."