National curling championships come to Wausau this week

The national championships of curling kick off Thursday in Wausau, and teams from around the country will be facing off in the sport sometimes called “chess on ice.”

Twenty-four teams from across the country will compete for the title in the bonspiel, or curling tournament, with finals held on Sunday for the annual USA Curling National Club Championships.

It’s a sport of strategy and skill. Players push a heavy granite stone across a sheet of specially maintained ice toward a target about 150 feet away. The aim is to have the stone stop as close to the center of the target — the “button” — as possible. Each team has a chief strategist called a “skipper” who plans out where the team should aim its stones, and how much “weight” or speed they should give their pushes.

Teams compete to place their stones at the target, with players taking turns pushing the stone and others who use a broom to help define its path on the ice. They can also try to block or knock out the opposing team’s stones.

The sport’s history goes back to the early 1500s in Scotland, and it’s been played by Wisconsinites since at least the mid-19th century. Since it became an Olympic sport in 1998, the U.S. Olympic team has often included Wisconsinites.

Jim Force, a member of the Wausau Curling Club’s board of directors, has been curling in central Wisconsin since the 1960s. He said the club originated in Wausau in the early 20th century.

“It’s a winter sport, so you can take advantage of it during the cold winter months up here, but it’s indoors, so we’re not weather dependent,” Force said. “If it’s raining outside or it’s blowing a gale outside or if it’s snowing outside, we’re inside the curling barn and we can curl.”

In 2012, Wausau built a 40,000-square-foot, $3 million curling facility with eight sheets of specially maintained ice. Curlers can’t easily use the lined and skate-marked ice used by hockey players or figure skaters; curling facilities employ a technique called “pebbling” to minimize friction on the ice. The Wausau club is one of the largest and highest-quality curling facilities in the nation.

Wausau also hosted the national championships in 2021, but did not permit spectators at the competition due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, the public is invited, with tickets costing $5 per day or $15 for the weekend.

Force said the competition will be fun and spirited.

“I can guarantee you they’re very, very good curlers,” he said of the field. “We’ll see some good strategy and some good shotmaking on the ice.”

For more information, visit wausaucurling.org.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct an error about how curling ice is maintained.