Pittsburgh curlers sweep through winter

Jacki Temple started curling because of a joke with her Canadian ex-husband. 

“He thought it would be funny to get a Southern girl out on the ice to do a thing she’d never heard of before,” she said.

Temple, 37, is a Pittsburgh Curling Club member originally from South Carolina.

From October to March, the club practices and plays every Saturday at Robert Morris University’s Neville Island Ice Sports Center. The club, which was founded in 2002, has 86 members, ranging in age from teens to 75 years old.

Curling, a traditional Scottish sport, has gained popularity in recent years through coverage in the Winter Olympics. 

In curling, the thrower of a four-person team launches a 42-pound stone down an ice rink toward the house, or the bullseye target marked on either end of the sheet of ice. The thrower wears curling shoes, as do all members, and slides on their non-dominant foot, which has teflon on the sole. 

Two sweepers with friction-pad brooms, which are made of pads attached to broom handles, sweep the ice in front of the stone to help it slide by slightly melting the ice. Sweepers score points depending on how close the stone is to the center of the house when it stops moving.

A curling game between members of Pittsburgh Curling Club is often accompanied by shouts of, “Sweep! Sweep!” as teammates encourage sweepers from the sidelines of Neville Rink.

A league within the club called Can-Am creates teams among club members who then compete against one another. The spring league finals will take place Saturday, March 8, according to the club’s website. 

Temple said the team also attends regional tournaments called bonspiels.

According to club member Amanda Marchitelli, 34, the club sent a women’s team to the United States Curling Association Inaugural Arena Nationals in Fort Wayne, Ind., last year. The club hopes to send a team to this June’s national competition in Dimondale, Mich. 

Temple attested to the strategy involved in curling. She serves on the club’s board and helps to plan the club’s Tropicurl summer curling bonspiel, or tournament, as part of her duties.

“It’s a game of strategy, the same way billiards and chess is a game of strategy,” Temple said. “You’re constantly trying to outthink your opponent and figure out angles and weight, and sometimes thinking two or three or five moves ahead.”

Temple said she now enjoys the sport especially for the friendliness and camaraderie. 

Brian Stuart, 55, the club’s vice president, has been curling for more than 40 years. As a 12-year-old, his next-door neighbor curled while he played hockey. He decided to try curling and found he was much better at curling than hockey.

Stuart feels there’s something unique about this sport.

“There’s a spirit to this game,” Stuart said, “the spirit of curling. Win graciously, lose gracefully.”

According to Stuart, a club member from Adams Township who wishes to remain anonymous donated land to the club to make a curling-only facility. Right now, the team has difficulty securing ice time and can practice and play only once a week at the Neville Island Sports Center in the winter season.

Stuart said Adams Township approved the plans, and the club is 70 percent funded for the building of the curling facility.

According to Temple, the project will cost $1.4 million. The club still needs another $400,000 to begin construction.

Temple said in an email that members, their friends, members of other curling clubs and local or national foundations and corporations have provided monetary funding for the project. Temple said other clubs have donated equipment.

The club can utilize the new space to extend the sport of curling to a broad range of members, Stuart said.

“We’d have youth curling for kids. We have a set of little rocks, so kids young as 8 can play,” he said. “We’ll have curling for seniors, adults, college kids and wheelchair curling.”

Another member, Amanda Marchitelli, 34, has curled for eight years and was drawn to curling after watching the Olympics several years ago.

“Watching the Olympics pretty much nailed it for me,” Marchitelli said.

Marchitelli added that her husband brought her to curling lessons to celebrate their anniversary eight years ago. 

“It’s something I’m able to do and my husband is able to do at the same time,” she said. “Pretty much once you get out and deliver a rock, you fall in love.”

Stuart said new curlers should come out to Learn to Curl, a half-hour or two-hour session hosted by the club that teaches attendees how to sweep, throw a stone and play a game of curling at the Island Sports Center. The sessions take place throughout February and March.

For first-time curlers, the sport can seem intimidating.

“Don’t be afraid of looking silly the first time you try it. Don’t be afraid to fall a little bit,” Temple said. “Go out and have fun. That’s what curling is about.”