Today was a CRAZY day of curling! It began at 9:00am when our 7-year-old took to the ice at Petersham Curling Club (PCC) for her first day as a member of the “Little Rocks” youth program (ages 7-12). It ended with me going on the ice back at PCC at 8:15pm to play in the Mixed League (men and women) until after 10:00pm.

In between those times, our 14-year-old daughter was up in the Toronto, Canada, area playing with her team against 15 other highly competitive Canadian and US teams. Her team had two games – 11:00am and 5:00pm – and wound up winning both of them… but with extremely tense and nail-biting endings!

I think I gained a good bit of white hair today… and that was just from watching the website and getting updates sent by messages from one of the parents up there in Canada!

It was a great day! From the boundless energy and enthusiasm of our 7yo, to our daughter’s team winning their two games… to my team squeaking out a narrow win (it came down to the final stone!).

A crazy day… but a good one!

Yea! Our daughter’s curling team is heading to the 2016 USA Curling Junior National Championships this month! Her team will be one of the top 10 junior women’s teams competing for the championship in Willmar, Minnesota, from January 16-23. She and her team are SO excited!

Over the holiday break her curling team competed at the regional “GNCC Playdowns” where three womens teams were competing for two slots at the Nationals. Starting on Sunday, December 27, 2015, it was a very tense set of days, but on Tuesday morning they were able to win their final game and get the second spot.

They will now be “Massachusetts 2” in the list of qualified teams for the Junior Nationals.

The “Massachusetts” name comes from the state where the skip (captain) of the team is located. In our case the skip, Rebecca Rodgers, curls out of the Petersham Curling Club in Petersham, MA, as does our daughter Chloe. The other two girls curl out of the Cape Cod (MA) Curling Club and the Nashua (NH) Country Club.

WE LEAVE ON FRIDAY, JANUARY 15! So this is all happening in a whirlwind of activity in a short time.

If you’d like to follow along with their activities, we’ve set up a Facebook page at:

https://www.facebook.com/TeamRodgersCurling

It is a public page, so you do NOT need a Facebook account to view the page.

At the Junior Nationals, they will be up against some of the best Juniors teams in the USA, and with the Junior age range being ages 12-21 … and our girls being 13-15… there are definitely some teams out there with more experience. (And the “High Performance” team in the list is composed of top players chosen by USA Curling and groomed for Olympic competition.) Regardless, the girls are looking forward to playing against these teams and getting experience playing at a national level! It’s going to be great!

Of course, as a parent (and in my case also the team coach), there’s also the cold, hard reality that it costs a good bit of money to move 8 people (4 players and their parent chaperones) from New England to western Minnesota and feed and house them for 9 days! In fact, our budget shows that it’s going to be between $9,000 and $10,000!

We parents are going to make this amazing opportunity happen for these girls however we can… but this is definitely a financial stretch. As a new team[1], we don’t yet have any kind of sponsorship, but we’re looking into seeing what we can do. I also set up my first ever GoFundMe page at:

https://www.gofundme.com/teamrodgerscurling

And we’ve had wonderful generosity from so many people that have already helped push us past the 25% mark! It’s so great to see so many people wanting to help send the girls to Nationals! (And more donations are definitely welcome!) We are so incredibly appreciative of all the donations to date, as well as the many other ways that people have offered to help.

Now… the countdown is on… in 11 days we’ll be on planes to Minnesota for an amazing week of curling!!

P.S. Our daughter Chloe is on the right end of the photo. For those who know curling, she plays “Lead” on the team. (And the photo is arranged in order of Skip, Vice, Second and Lead.)

[1] This is the first year these four girls have been curling together as a team. However, they have each been curling for 5-8 years and one of them (Rebecca) was an Alternate on a Nationals team last year and three of them (Rebecca, Anna and Elizabeth) were in the regional playdowns last year as part of another team. All four of them have been playing on teams in youth tournaments (bonspiels) for the past five years, very often playing against each other! So it’s fun to have them all together on one team.

An audio commentary is also available:

Today I was reminded of one of the truly awesome and wonderful aspects of youth curling bonspiels (tournaments) – when the kids go through the door out onto the ice, the game is ENTIRELY up to *them*.

No adults are allowed out on the ice. No coaches. No parents. No one.

Just the youth.

Unlike other youth team sports there are no coaches helping call the shots or determine the flow of play. There is no one to consult with. (Although we are nearby if there is a rules question that needs addressing or if there are safety issues.) From the initial start with a shaking of hands and a coin toss all the way to the end… it is entirely up to the kids.

The strategy. The scoring. The flow of the game. The making of the shots. The interpretation of the rules.

All of it… by them.

Of course we as coaches work with them to teach them all the different aspects of the sport and to prepare them for the games.

But when they go through that door… it is entirely up to them!

We are left to just watch from behind the glass… to celebrate… and sometimes to cringe… but there is absolutely nothing we can do but watch!

Pretty awesome for the kids!

Tonight begins a new era in our lives as parents as our 12-year-old daughter competes for the first time in a curling “bonspiel” (tournament) that will go all weekend (or, at least, we hope so!). Over the past three years that she has been involved with the Petersham Curling Club youth program in nearby Petersham, MA, she’s been in the “Little Rocks” program where she has played in typically three or four one-day bonspiels around New England.

But now that she has reached the age of 12 she is in the “Juniors” program… and they play at a much more serious level and in events that take a much greater amount of time!

The event this weekend is the Broomstones Junior Bonspiel at the Broomstones Curling Club in Wayland, Massachusetts, about two hours away from where we live. She’s on a team with three other youth with whom she has been playing for three years. For those who know curling teams she’ll be playing the “second” position in the team. (It’s the second person of four to throw stones for a team.)

The games are full 8-end games, which means they’ll be on the ice for a full two hours! Their schedule right now is:

• Friday, Nov 21:
  • 7:15pm
• Saturday, Nov 22:
  • 8:30am
  • 1:00pm
  • 6:30pm

The bonspiel is arranged in a series of brackets with the outcome determining who will play in the playoffs and finals on Sunday. We’re certainly hopeful that the team will do well enough to be in the games on Sunday.

I’m excited for her… and as a parent I’ll be there on the sidelines cheering her team on! (I’ll also be posting updates and a few photos to the Petersham Youth Curling Facebook page.)

And then, yes… we have probably 3 or 4 more of these all-weekend events coming up over the course of the winter, along with some one-day events, too.

Let the curling season begin! 🙂

About this time tomorrow I’ll be down in Warminster, Pennsylvania, stepping onto the ice to help out with coaching in a “Junior Curling Camp”.

Yes, curling… that winter sport.

In July. 🙂

And yes, I’m excited! I’m taking two vacation days to bring my 12-year-old daughter Chloe down to this Junior Curling Camp sponsored by the Grand National Curling Club (GNCC), the organization that helps coordinate the sport of curling along the eastern coast of the USA.

Chloe absolutely loves the sport and has been curling for the past three years in the Petersham Curling Club youth curling program down in Petersham, MA, about 45 minutes south of where we live in Keene, NH. This past year she was a skip (captain) for one of our Petersham “Little Rocks” teams (ages 7-11) and did quite well in a couple of bonspiels (tournaments).

Now as a 12-year-old she’ll be going into the “Juniors” program and playing at a more serious level with kids ages 12 up to 21-ish. When we were talking earlier this year about what to do this summer, this curling camp rose right to the top of her choices. 🙂 So we’re heading down to join 31 other kids from around the region for what should be a couple of pretty intense days. It starts tomorrow (Thursday, July 31, 2014) afternoon and goes through Sunday mid-day. Lots of practice sessions, individual coaching, classroom work and some games.

The fun part for me is that I also get to join in the action as a coaching assistant. The camp will have some high-level coaches and instructors from the US Curling Association and from national teams, but they invited other club coaches to help… and I jumped right in. I’m very much looking forward to learning a great deal over the next few days from the other coaches that I can bring back to our Petersham CC youth program, as well as for the Monadnock Curling Club effort we are trying to start up in Keene.

So that’s the plan… curling… in July… in Pennsylvania! 🙂

Here’s a fun little video piece about curling… Boston’s WCVB TV station as part of their “Chronicle” show did a segment where Petersham, Mass., was their “mystery town”. In the third segment they show the Petersham Curling Club where I curl on Tuesday nights in the Men’s League and coach the “Little Rockers” on Saturday mornings. The curling portion is after the part about the monastery (which I’ve always wondered about since I drive right by it to get to the curling club) and a piece about a local B&B.

Very cool to see and I hope some folks in the region will come on over to the PCC to try out curling!

P.S. Curling also got a brief view in the fourth segment where the “mystery town” was revealed to be Petersham. (Pronounced “Peter’s ham”.)

Would your kids (or you if you are ages 5-18) like to try out the sport of curling? If so, if you live in north central Massachusetts or southwest New Hampshire, you will have an opportunity tomorrow to see what curling is all about at:

Youth Curling Open House
Friday, December 28, 2012 from 1-3pm
Petersham Curling Club, Petersham, MA

Curling is a fun team sport that is open to pretty much anyone to be able to play. I play in an adult league on Tuesday nights and my 10-year-old daughter (pictured) plays in the youth curling on Saturday mornings. It’s about a 45-minute drive for us from Keene, NH, but it’s worth it to play on good ice and learn the sport.

You are welcome to come by tomorrow and try it out. The open house is free and directions are available on the Petersham Curling Club website.

If you can’t make it tomorrow but are interested in staying up on future events like this, we also have a Facebook page for the Petersham Youth Curling that you can “Like” and stay connected.

We’d welcome any youth who would like to join us on the regular Saturday mornings… it’s a great amount of fun!