2023/2024 Championship Dates

Mark your calendars for the PNWCA playdowns and championships for the 20234/2024 season! Details about the national events can be found at usacurling.org.

This post will be updated with registration information when it becomes available.

5 & Under
Date: November 18-20, 2023
Location: Granite Curling Club of Seattle

U18 Boys and Girls
Date: December 15-17, 2023
Location: Evergreen Curling Club

Senior Men & Women
Date: December 26-28, 2023
Location: Granite Curling Club of Seattle
Note: This is a standalone regional event that does not lead to a national championship.

Mixed
Date: January 5-7, 2024
Location: Evergreen Curling Club

Club Men & Women
Date: January 27-29, 2024
Location: Granite Curling Club of Seattle

Open
Date: February 10-12, 2024
Location: Granite Curling Club of Seattle
Note: This is a standalone regional event that does not lead to a national championship.

Arena Men & Women
Date: June 1-2, 2024
Location: Granite Curling Club of Seattle

“Theory of Curling” classroom series

Class is in session… join us on for the “Theory of Curling” classroom series starting July 10th!

These virtual & interactive off-ice sessions, led by 2023 Senior National Champion Doug Kauffman, will equip you with the knowledge you need to level up your curling and gain a competitive edge for the upcoming season. 

Doug will draw on his 25+ year curling career to share insights and experience on several topics, including strategy, team dynamics, shooting, sweeping, ice conditions, health & fitness, and more!

Class sessions will run every Monday evening through July and August, with each week building on the previous ones. Note that you must be a PNWCA member to join the Zoom meetings— however, recordings will be posted and made publicly available afterward via the PNWCA website. 

Register your interest here to be added to the invite list: 

https://forms.gle/B6aytgw21ScvuEVZA

USCA Western Director Report 6/18/23

*Note: Darryl Horsman is the USCA representative for the Western region, which includes the PNWCA, MOPAC and Alaska regions. We’ll be posting his updates here for the members of our region*

Good morning everyone – I hope this email finds you well! I wanted to share with you a couple of updates from the last Board meeting we had on 6/14/23.

First off – the USCA at this fiscal year end is in a positive cash flow situation with just over $250k in the accounts. The 2023-2024 Budget was proposed for the upcoming year and was approved by the Board. Key take-aways is that Dean and the USCA team will continue to drive down expenses and as a group we are bullish on income – but remain conservative. The 2024 budget shows a net increase of about $150k over this year. The Board is working with Dean and his team to create some KRA’s (key result areas) or what some of you might know as Flash numbers so that we can share and monitor the progress month to month, year over year. Along these same lines – we will be working on some stretch goals as simply “doing better” isn’t really a target! Happy to report that Columbia is continuing their support of curling and Toyota has come back. The plan is to get more sponsors moving forward of course. 

Second, and maybe more importantly; after a couple nights of good discussion – Terri Gleason from Wisconsin making the motion, and Colin Hufman from Washington seconding the motion – the Board unanimously approved that Dean and his team adopt many of the recommendations provided by the Governance 4.0 committee and can move forward with introducing a new membership model and possibly some incentives for clubs. As an aside – there have been a number of ad hoc committees made up of various Board members (myself included) over the past couple of months that have put forth some membership models and club incentive ideas to support a few ideas Dean has constructed. I expect there will be a lot of excitement, anxiety, questions, and suspicion surrounding this news but I want to reassure everyone that the Board was extra sensitive to small membership/arena clubs and was vigilant in making sure the big membership/dedicated clubs didn’t get more breaks than they should due to their size. We don’t want to create a “rich gets richer” atmosphere anywhere in USCA curling. I think the conversation among the Board and Dean was really productive, inclusive, well thought out,  and really took the recommendations and thoughts sent forth by the 4.0 Governance Committee to heart. At this time there is no direction to change the way the regions are set up as that wasn’t a large concern that the 4.0 committee pointed out. With that said, at some point this might be looked at but the hope is that the new membership model relieves much of the stress they were feeling over the last few years. 

The next part of this plan is to host another Town Hall in early July once Dean and his team have had a chance to really hone the new membership model that will affect clubs and curlers. At this time the Town Hall will be your chance to provide feedback and ask questions so that Dean and his team can rework anything that the members don’t like – with the thoughts of having something that the majority, if not all all, of the USCA members will want to support and approve at the next Members Assembly.

It is not lost on anyone at the USCA or who is on the Board that the work that is currently being done is sensitive and important to the future of curling in the USA. We again would like to thank all of those who were on the Governance 4.0 committee and for the great work they did getting us to this point.

Thank you and Good Curling!

Darryl

January Skills Clinic (Virtual)

January 22, 9:00-11:30 AM PST – PNWCA Skills Clinic on Strategy & Tactics
This interactive, off-ice session will cover the core concepts of curling strategy and how to apply these concepts in game scenarios. This session is suitable for those that are new to skipping, want a refresher on the basics, or just want to be a more effective member of their team from any position. This session is virtual so you can participate from anywhere!  Sign up here

“Super(market) Sweepers” win PNWCA 5 & Under Championship

The PNWCA 5 & Under Championship returned to Granite Curling Club of Seattle on December 16-18, with an expanded field of 12 teams. Curlers from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, and Arizona participated in this event that also served as a qualifier for the USA Curling 5 & Under National Championship. Following pool play, the teams were divided into “A” and “B” events, both of which were extremely competitive.

The “Super(market) Sweepers” (Brandon Ellison, Kimber Maroney, Woody Wu, Jeff Hansen – Coyotes CC) emerged victorious in the A event and punched their ticket to nationals with a 5-0 record.  

Team Dimmit (Will Dimmit, Matt Rockett, Sonja Wesch, Thorsten Frank – Granite CC & Evergreen CC) waited until the playoffs to begin their winning streak, ultimately earning the title of B event winners. Not too shabby for a team with two brand new curlers!

Special shout out to Team Cornwell (Jayson Cornwell, Raymond Gawenit, Zac Crawford, Ean Scholz) of Inland Northwest Curling Club, who got their first experience on dedicated ice at the event. We look forward to seeing you back at GCC again!

Team Larway Sweeps the PNWCA Senior Championship

Team Larway won the 2022 PNWCA Senior Championship held Dec 26-28 at GCC. The rink of John Rasmussen, Ken Trask, Doug Kauffman, and Joel Larway (see picture) swept the round robin phase of the tournament.

Joel writes, “I’d start with a huge thank you to the ice crew for providing the ice for all of us. Also a thank you to the other teams. It was great to have five teams and many past GCC presidents as well. We know this event is for bragging rights only, but we will take full advantage of that. Phil Shryock showed us the way. We are so looking forward to being having the GCC host the US Senior Nationals this year and we have been working on peaking for that event. We hope many of the members will come out and support that event.”

The tournament was organized by the Pacific Northwest Curling Association and invited men and women from the Granite, Evergreen, Bend, and Inland Northwest Curling Clubs. While the regional tournament was not a qualifier for the 2023 USCA Men’s and Women’s Senior Nationals, it provided great preparation for the national event.

USCA Western Director Report 12/7/22

*Note: Darryl Horsman is the USCA representative for the Western region, which includes the PNWCA, MOPAC and Alaska regions. We’ll be posting his updates here for the members of our region*

Good morning everyone! I hope this note finds everyone well and that you are in the Christmas spirit – the big day is fast approaching! Whatever your beliefs or practice – I hope that you get to spend time with loved ones over the holidays.

We had a Board meeting 12/5 that I wanted to provide a recap on and some other goings on at the USCA.

First of, we hope that you are all finding that Interim Dean Gemmell is doing a fairly good job so far. He has engaged in a few town halls already, made the USCA’s appearance known at a few Arena championships, and has attended a new club opening recently. As we all recognized, the leadership and the support staff of the USCA needed to do a better job openly communicating to the membership and to be actively involved at events that weren’t just high performance or Olympic. Also you should be seeing more communication – with a significantly better tone from the USCA via social media which again is another avenue that needed an overhaul. Organizationally, the staff that is at the USCA have all stepped up in amazing ways to assist in the rebuilding and changing the culture after recent events which we can all be thankful for.

Due to expenses and an unclear revenue picture (dues) – the USCA has tabled hiring a DEI Director which was on the list of things to do until a future date. In the interim, Dean, Bret, and myself have engaged with the DEI Committee and have had a couple of good meetings. The hope is that we can use the talents and input from this group to help steward thoughtful change until the time comes to hire an actual DEI Director. We are thankful that both groups have come to the table solely to help curling, DEI, and the USCA to be better.

From some of the discussions with the DEI Committee and a few others, at this latest meeting the Board worked on and approved a USCA Core Value statement. A number of years ago I was on a committee to redo the Mission Statement of the USCA. I believe the Core Value statement does a better job communicating the guiding principles the Board and the USCA must lean moving forward. Watch for this to be presented to the membership shortly. I also believe that these core values will provide the membership another way to hold the organization accountable – hopefully not from an “I gotcha” perspective, but maybe from a shared understanding and agreement of purpose and expectation.

We are almost ready to have the Governance 4.0 committee announced. The plan is to have 10 curler representatives and 5 athlete representatives on the committee. We have tried to get a broad cross-section of the curling community on the committee; from arena to dedicated, big clubs to small club representation, and we tried to get someone from each member region. While the organizing committee is still reaching out to those who volunteered (there were 32 who did), from the West, the Board have highlighted Mikhail Simin from San Francisco, Kris Klinkhammer from Portland, and Mimi Stevinson from Denver to be on the committee. I suspect the committee with be in touch with those to confirm they are still wanting the job.

The plan for a CEO search moves forward. What we are trying to do with a small committee from the Board, is to choose a company to assist with the CEO search. As you may know, the company that was used to find Jeff Plush and others, was a company that most other NGB’s have used – we may not go that route again. Armed with all the previous CEO search data from Roger Rowlett from the GNCC, the new CEO Search committee is busily working on determining what USCA needs in a CEO and what company will be used to assist in finding quality individuals. The plan is to have those details hammered out before January – and maybe we might have some candidates to vet by February. As this progresses I’ll share updates with the group.

Finally – In January/February we will be looking to replace the three open Directors positions, two WCF representatives as their terms end, and potentially one Regional Director position as the clubs that are no longer with the GNCC will need to have their person. For now – the remaining Directors and Chair are working closely with each other to make sure this ship continues to move in the right direction. More to come on this in the new year.

As always, if you wish to discuss anything, I encourage you to email me. I am here to help. I hope that all of your clubs are doing well and have had time to heal from the recent events and are encouraged by what they see and hear. The curling community is passionate, resilient, and we are able to do much together.

I wish you all the very best this holiday season and for prosperity and health for the New Year.

Thank you and Good Curling!
Darryl Horsman

December Skills Clinic

PNWCA is running another clinic at GCC on Sunday December 4th from 9am – 11:30am. This clinic is open to all members of curling clubs in the Pacific Northwest Curling Association

Practice with Purpose

Learn how to make the most of your practice ice time, whether you are practicing by yourself, with a partner, or in a group or team. We’ll go over how to set goals for your practice session and different drills you can utilize to reach them. We’ll also work with you on-ice during this 2.5-hour session to offer tips and coaching to make the most of our favorite practice drills.

Please RSVP here, so we have an idea of how many curlers to expect.

November Skills Clinic (Postponed)

***POSTPONED TO December 3rd***

PNWCA is running another clinic at GCC on Sunday November 27th from 9am – 11:30am. This clinic is open to all members of curling clubs in the Pacific Northwest Curling Association

Practice with Purpose

Learn how to make the most of your practice ice time, whether you are practicing by yourself, with a partner, or in a group or team. We’ll go over how to set goals for your practice session and different drills you can utilize to reach them. We’ll also work with you on-ice during this 2.5-hour session to offer tips and coaching to make the most of our favorite practice drills.

Please RSVP here, so we have an idea of how many curlers to expect.