Welcome everybody to Midday Magazine for this Monday, October 28th, 2024.
Have your host, James here.
We're joined right now by some great friends of ours.
We're talking curling with the Tri-City Curling Club.
We have in with us Steven Hittner, a familiar voice.
Steven, thanks for being here.
Yeah, thank you.
And Mitch Wayne.
Mitch, first time joining us.
Thanks a lot for being here, Mitch.
Yeah, thanks for having us, James.
I have to tell you guys, since growing up in a hockey household,
my father, a very big curling fan,
really a fan of anything that involves skates.
Really anything, figure skating, curling, anything of the above.
And it's one of those sports that I know, but I don't know, no.
I don't know as well as I could.
So I was really happy to have you guys in studio, kick off the week here with a great interview.
And I want to get into the curling club itself and some other great things about the curling club.
But Mitch, if you don't mind, I feel like a good place to start is what is curling?
And talking about what curling is, exactly.
Yeah, so curling is a sport, which is now an Olympic sport.
And it's played on sheet of ice.
Teams are made up of four people.
And as you play, one person is delivering the rock.
Two people are sweeping.
And then the captain of the team, which they call the skip,
is directing the shot to be called.
So during the, as the game goes on,
everybody throws two stones in every end, we call it.
Which is getting all the stones and the other other other sheet of ice.
So it's a game that everybody is playing and everybody's participating.
And it's a great winter activity.
We are indoors, but it is cool because we have ice.
And there's a level of exercise, which is depending on what you can put into it.
And it is really curlers from all ages.
I'm sure I get into this Mitch, but that's what impressed me when I joined the curling club.
So I'm relatively new to curling and Mitch is part of the institution over there.
And you see curlers.
What's the oldest curler and youngest curler you have right now?
Well, the ticker is ages 8 to 80.
Nice.
We had an eight year old and learned a curl last year.
He was just a little small.
I think this year he's ready to go.
Great.
He'll be nine and he'll be able to do it.
We have people that are near the end of their 80s.
Wow.
So it is a sport you can do once you've, once you do it, it's a lifetime activity.
And there's also some great modifications of people that are like, they've watched the Olympics.
Obviously, that's the Olympics.
Yeah.
Like everything.
Like I can run.
But I can't run like they do in the Olympics, right?
So there's ways you could do curling, especially as you get older.
Or there's even people my age that maybe have a problem with one of their knees.
And they can't get down as low.
There's ways to deliver the stone to send the stone down the ice with a stick.
And some of those people are just as good as the people doing it the traditional way.
It's a great sport for, and there's a lot of families involved.
It's, you know, it's one of these sports that you can grow into and do your whole life, which is, which is what drew me to it personally.
I think one of the things that pulls a lot of people to the sport during the Olympics is when you're seeing it,
and you're seeing athletes out there that look very similar to the people you're sitting next to on the couch.
There's that, there's something about that.
It's similar to bowling and other sports.
They pull us in a little bit differently than other sports do.
And that right there really kicks off a part of what we want to get into today too, as far as encouraging people to learn about curling,
join the curling club, and that it's really something for everybody and something everybody can do and enjoy.
It's a fun sport, and it's one that's, well, it's been around itself from what I could find.
16th century Scotland is where curling pretty much gets started and everything.
We locally here have been doing this for a while, too, Mitch.
It's 1958, I believe, the curling club has been around.
Yes, they started in 1958, and they had a curling rink, kind of by the old YMCA in Port Edwards.
The mill expanded and moved us, they gave us some land to use in 1976, where our new building is.
So we're located on Hurley Street, which is the Highway 54 and 73 between Wisconsin Rapids and Port Edwards.
I always tell people that they're driving to Port Edwards, and they make a big left hand turn, they went too far.
So they turn around and come back.
There's signs there for a historical marker for the Centralia Dam, and that's where we are.
As long as this has been around this club, this sport, it speaks to the popularity, especially in this area for curling.
Yeah. For people, Wisconsin is one of the largest population of curling in the US.
There's probably around 20, 25,000 curlers in the US, 5,000 in Wisconsin.
So it's also got 30 curling clubs in the state, which is the most curling clubs in any state.
So Wisconsin is the happiest curling.
When I went to one of the bond spills, I was actually on a team for the men's bond spiel that the curling club in town here is pretty famous for, mostly because they serve some excellent food.
And I think we need to get into that at some point today because that's a special thing about curling.
There's oftentimes food associated with the events.
But when I went to that, what was amazing to see all these different folks come in from around the state, and some of them get coming for ages.
It's like a tradition.
We always come to the bond spiel, the competition in Wisconsin Rapids, and they bring their best friends.
Maybe they've been doing it as a team for a while. Maybe they're bringing in new members.
But it's really, it's really a special thing about Wisconsin and how popular this sport is.
That's one of the things I really love about it because it's all these little cities.
You know, like, you'd be one thing for in Milwaukee, right?
They're going to have any sport you name, right?
But you can be in a nice small town, like Port Edwards or Wisconsin Rapids, Nurtaku, Selver, not far from any, either those spices with this club.
And you can, you can do this sport, you know, and that's, it's a really, it's got roots in a lot of small communities.
Wapaka, I don't know, smaller cities in Wapaka, probably, right?
Yeah, Lodai.
Yeah.
And then around here, Marshfield, Steven's point.
Yeah.
Well, and to your point earlier, Steven, about watching the Olympics and seeing some of the things that they're doing there,
and seeing similar things in our curling clubs locally and everything, it speaks to how oftentimes we see Olympic athletes in those positions
that are people that you might have been curling with or curling against on a local level and everything,
which is kind of unique and cool.
Well, there's some heritage here in town.
Maybe Mitch, you can talk about, did we have an Olympian?
Yeah, Miles Brundage from Nikusa was in the Olympics in 1998 and 2002.
And yeah, he got with a group of very good team and superior,
and they were talented enough to win the state and the U.S. competitions.
And Mitch, can't stress us enough.
You know, this is something that whoever is listening right now, no matter what your age or your way of life,
this is something that is welcoming to you.
This is a community, this is a group, this is an organization that welcomes all the wants,
all ages and everybody that be able to come and have a good time.
Yeah, yeah, we're definitely, a lot of our curlers are getting older.
We need the next batch to come in and get a younger group down there.
You know, it's a very social sport.
And that's one thing we do when we teach is there's no negativity on the ice.
You congratulate the other team for making shots.
You don't say anything out loud about the other team.
And you start the game with a handshake with everybody.
And you end the game with a handshake.
And then you go sit down at a table and have snacks and a beverage.
And then we talk to people.
And that's, you do that in every game.
I curled in a tournament right under this weekend.
And you sit down for an hour and talk to the people you play against and learn about them.
And there's always the exact number of chairs for two teams to sit around one table.
You might not observe that the first time you come in.
But you know, once you look at it, you kind of see this is very intentional.
This is part of the sport is the follow through.
It's not just the time on the ice, but it's the time with the community, the curling club and other members.
And sort of that, you know, like that, the camaraderie and also the supportiveness.
You never see negativity on ice.
And I think that's part of what I really love about the sport.
There's so much negativity.
Often other sports, you know, there's a lot of cutthroat stuff.
We don't, we don't need that our day to day life.
There's enough of that.
You want to turn on the news.
You'll find some of that.
I'm sure.
Let's go curl and just have a nice time and relax, you know, in the day.
The camaraderie stands out.
It's palpable, even watching it on screen.
You can see that.
And that's one of the things that I think pulls a lot of people to the sport.
It makes a lot of people enjoy the sport, whether it's playing it or actually just watching it and everything.
Steven, for you, you mentioned that you're a recent to this.
What got you to want to even go into this and look into this?
Yeah, so originally I did the Learn to Curl with one of my sisters, Katrina,
as many of you listed, there's no Katrina and I own family natural foods.
And we love trying new things and always like to be active and stuff.
And we had never done curling.
So we went to the curling club and Mitch was there to greet the Learn to Curlers
and handful of other veteran curlers were there.
And they made it really easy.
It's very affordable.
Sometimes you look at sports, especially ice sports, when you're talking about hockey.
I know Katrina, for example, she did hockey when she was in high school.
It's an expensive sport.
It's time, a lot of time commitments.
I've done a decent amount of curling at this point for a young Curler.
And I've always found it to be quite easy.
The Learn to Curl, what is the fee this year?
So our Learn to Curl is a three-night instructional.
So we're going to do that December 4th, 11th and 18th on Wednesdays, from 6 to 8 at PM.
The cost is nominal, it's like $35 or $40 per person.
And then we also throw a bonus on there.
We let them curl every Wednesday for the rest of the year.
Yeah, that's the part I didn't get when I came in.
I was kind of like, oh, we're going to do this three times.
This will be fun.
I'll say, hey, I curled, right?
I could tell my friends whatever.
Tell my friends in Florida or wherever they're at.
But I got there.
We did the three times, which even at the $30, $40, three times,
I was like, well, I can't go bowling for that price.
I can't go to the movie theater for that price.
I can't go to a concert.
Certainly not.
But you could, for $30, I was like, I already got my value.
And then at the end of the third day, Mitch was like, well, you guys coming back next week.
And then sure enough, we curled for another couple of months.
A phenomenal value.
And it's really just a way to get people a chance to try it.
And every time I've seen these learned to curl groups come out of it,
there's always a few people that just, you know,
they're life belong to their learners after this.
Because they see what they get it.
And I think everybody should just, anybody who's interested in it,
should just try to learn to curl.
Because it's such a fun community activity.
It gets you out there and it's, it's low commitment, you know,
30, 40 bucks, try it out.
You'll know pretty quick if you like it or not.
That camaraderie and that fellowship that you mentioned,
having opportunities for that, the organic conversations that can happen
or relationships you could make are certainly wonderful about all this.
But there's also another part of this too,
where I appreciate in the exercise of this.
And while it's not a gigantic workout or anything,
you're still getting to go workout.
And especially if you're a bit up there in age,
you don't get a chance to have these chances to flex
and get some workouts in very often.
Yeah, and so you're out on the ice for two hours
and you're doing some walking.
You're probably walking, at least a mile,
when you're walking back and forth where you're sweeping.
And then when you're sweeping, it's not,
it's not a real good cardio.
But you are, you know, you'll have 15, 22nd burst of your sweeping
and if you can, you're pushing pretty hard on it and stick.
And if you can't, you're at least walking along
and dusting the ice.
So it's something to do, right?
And it keeps you moving enough that you never really get cold out there.
You know, some people are kind of like,
oh, I'm going to get too cold on the ice.
I don't, I never had that problem.
You know, you wear some different layers because sometimes you get a little warm,
sometimes you get a little cooler.
But generally speaking, it's not that cold in there.
So, you know, it's like, it's cold outside,
but they kind of maintain that temperature just around freezing
so they can keep the ice, you know, frozen.
But it's not that cold.
And once you're kind of moving and you're walking around,
it's really easy.
It's typically around 35 degrees, you know, at your chest level.
If it's really cold outside, it gets a little cooler in there.
We're speaking with Mitch Wayne and Steven Hittner from Tri-City Curling Club
about the Tri-City Curling Club.
And you guys have an open house coming up.
Yeah, so we have open houses plus scheduled for Saturday afternoons,
November 9th and the 16th from one to three or one to four.
People keep, if people show up, we're going to stay there.
You don't have to be there the whole time.
At least come down and try it.
What I do suggest is it will be cool.
So bring our sweatshirts and sweatpants actually work better than tight jeans
with our movement.
And kind of a clean pair of shoes that grip a little bit to the ice.
That's a really hard, solid, plastic, solid.
That's too slippery.
We've got all the equipment to do the open houses
and to learn the curl we have brushes for sweeping.
The clubs always provide the stones.
That would be interesting.
That would be like a bowling ball.
Yeah, a bowling ball.
Yeah.
They need to stay cold so they can stay at the club.
And then there's things you put on your feet to help you slide
and we have that equipment.
So Steven is talking about the cost.
You know, for the learned curl and the open houses,
we have the equipment to use.
Yeah.
Which is how many sports are there or organizations or things like that?
Where you just bring yourself, bring some good shoes and some of that.
But really, that's all you need.
And certainly the clothing to match the weather and everything at the temperatures.
Because some of the basic questions that I had from people when it comes to curling,
you guys have already answered.
And I think one of the ones that a lot of people might not understand right away
is you don't need to learn, you don't need to be able to skate to curl.
You're not going to be on a pair of skates out there.
Yeah, that's important.
Yeah.
And you know, it helps to have a little balance.
Sure.
But not the, you don't need the skating.
No, really.
Yeah, it's very different that way.
It's just basically walking.
Yeah, you just were, when I started, I just wore tennis shoes and, you know,
you just walk along and you kind of, you kind of get a sense of the ice.
And there'll be a lot of pointers on like how to keep your,
keep your sense of balance and just like, you know, kind of keeping people,
keeping people safe out there too.
Yeah.
It's pretty, it's a lot easier than it seems.
Yeah.
Mitch, what else did you have for us?
So, so we do have some competition events throughout the year.
The first week in January, we have an open bond spiel.
And so, as Steven was talking, we call our tournaments bond spiels.
Which by the way, every tournament should be named that.
Like every sport.
Every sport should be named that.
That's the best, that's better than the Super Bowl.
That is a great name.
That's a really good name.
Yeah, so that's just a two day event on a Saturday and Sunday,
the first, first weekend, full weekend in January.
And that's an open bond spiel.
So, so teams for guys, for women, some of each,
and quick two day, 12 team event.
And then in March, first weekend in March, we always have our men's tournament.
And that's 16 teams.
And like Steven mentioned, a lot of the teams have been curling in it for 20 or 30 years.
And then like their kids are curling now instead.
So, that's our main tournament.
We also have a club tournament.
And the best way, you know, all this talking.
If you're interested at all in curling,
the best way to reach us is by phone.
It's a 7-1-5-4-2-1-0-2-0-1.
And that's, we're also in the phone book,
or if you can Google us, that'll work.
Leave a message as most people aren't there,
most during most of the day.
And we'll get back to you.
You know, if none of these time schedules work out,
call us, we'll arrange for another time.
We'll do, if you want to come, just come down and meet us sometime.
We can open it up.
Otherwise, we do have leagues on Monday night, Tuesday night,
learn to curls, Wednesday night,
and then Thursday night is another league.
You're more than welcome to come in.
Any of those nights, observe, and then talk to someone,
and get some information.
And that's usually the only time you can reach someone down there
is from six o'clock to nine o'clock on weeknights.
Yeah, and it's a great way to just kind of stop in,
like the open house would be obviously the best time.
Can you remind us of when the open house is, Mitch?
Yeah, there are Saturdays November 9th and November 16th
from one to four.
Yeah, that would be the best time to kind of get a sense of that.
And then you could still be able to sign up for the Learn to Curl
at that point too.
Sign up to Learn to Curl even up to December.
And if you can't make the first week just come the next week,
it's everything's pretty open, we can catch you up.
Yeah, yeah, it's a lot of fun.
I've said more than once, it's a pretty easy sport,
but it's also one of those sports that you could spend
your lifetime trying to perfect.
So if you're one of those people that likes to have a continual
kind of challenge and something to work on,
yes, it's easy to get kind of like,
I remember the first year I did Learn to Curl,
I got off at the end of the season, I was like,
I'm pretty good at this.
And then after that, I've kind of been like,
oh, okay, I got a long ways to go.
But I love that about the sport.
And I think like it can really grow with you over the years
and you can keep doing it really as long as you want.
There's like you said, people in their 80s still curling,
which I think is a beautiful thing.
And you can bring, if I was in my 80s,
I'd bring my grandkids out there and have them try too.
And I'm sure that's happening every season.
Whereas Mitch touched on earlier,
we're always looking for new people.
And we want to keep this sport alive and keep it healthy
in this area.
There's a lot of pride in this sport in this state.
We want to keep that going as well.
And certainly always reach out to any volunteers out there.
Anybody that wants to help out,
give a hand with an event like this.
You're not only putting back in your community,
but you're having a darn good time while you're at it too.
And we'll keep an eye out for those open houses.
We'll be reminding our office, our community about it
and everything, Mitch, as we get closer to those
and making sure you guys get a nice good turnout for that.
And I apologize, Mitch, you did too good of a job.
You're going to have to come back.
You've got to come back now.
We appreciate you so much being with us today.
And again, when I remind everybody how you can reach out to Mitch
in the Curling Tri-City Curling Club,
their Facebook page is probably one of the better places to go.
You can direct message him that way and also get up to date
and all the things that they have going on over there.
I went to your page and liked it a while back
and appreciate all the time getting the updates
and seeing how the season's going and everything.
Encourage people to do that and also that phone number.
715-421-0201, that's right one.
Okay.
421-0201, be sure to give that reach out to them
with any of your curling questions or needs.
This is one of those sports that's really open for everybody
and something that not only you can be a part of
and have some fun while you're at it,
but also keep it alive and keep the fun going
with this great sport.
Both of you, thank you so much for the time today.
Yeah, thank you, James.
We'll have more Midday Magazine for you right here
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