Phil Shryock Nominated to USCA Board of Directors

The Pacific Northwest, Mountain Pacific, and Alaska Curling Associations are pleased to nominate Phil Shryock as our candidate for the United States Curling Association (USCA) Board of Directors for a two-year term beginning November 1, 2023.  Phil was chosen by a selection committee consisting of nine curlers from the three regions.

Phil has been a member of Granite Curling Club of Seattle since 2010, where he is a past president and board member, and currently sits on the finance, strategic planning, merchandise, and communications committees. He has also served as Vice President of the Pacific Northwest Curling Association since 2022. He is certified as both an instructor and official and remains very active in a wide array of aspects at the club, regional, and national levels. Phil has a career background in consumer behavior and market research analytics in the retail and real estate field. He brings a wealth of experience in leadership, strategic planning, finance, marketing and sponsor engagement, as well as an enthusiasm for our sport and the community around it.

We would like to thank all of the passionate, qualified candidates who applied for this position. We especially want to thank Darryl Horsman for serving as our representative on the USCA Board of Directors for the past two years and for his continued devotion to advancing our sport.

2023/2024 Championship Dates

Mark your calendars for the PNWCA playdowns and championships for the 2023/2024 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 GirlsRegister here
Date: December 15-17, 2023
Location: Evergreen Curling Club
Registration Deadline: November 22, 2023

Senior Men & WomenRegister here
Date: December 26-28, 2023
Location: Granite Curling Club of Seattle
Registration Deadline: December 15th, 2023
Note: This is a standalone regional event that does not lead to a national championship.

MixedRegister here
Date: January 5-7, 2024
Location: Evergreen Curling Club
Registration Deadline: December 13th, 2023

Club Men & WomenRegister here
Date: January 27-29, 2024
Location: Granite Curling Club of Seattle
Registration deadline: January 3, 2024

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

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.

PNWCA 5 & Under Championship

Registration now open! The PNWCA 5 & Under Championship is back! Twelve teams will compete from December 16-18 at Granite Curling Club of Seattle in order to win the title of best in the Pacific Northwest! This event is also a qualifier for the 2023 USA Curling 5 & Under National Championship.

Registration opens Saturday, October 8th. Priority will be given to PNW teams until October 22nd (or until the 12-team cap is reached), so be sure to sign up early! All curlers must have 5 years of experience or less to be eligible. For more details and to register, visit https://curlingseattle.org/competitions

Slide Tuneup at GCC

The PNWCA is hosting a free “Slide Tuneup” at GCC September 11th from 1:30pm to 4:00pm. This is an opportunity for curlers with 2 months to 20+ years of experience to get feedback on their deliveries and tips on how to improve from a number of coaches. Two 75-minute sessions are available, each with room for up to 20 curlers. To sign up, please email development@pnwcurling.org with your preferred time slot (1:30-2:45 or 2:45-4:00).

Note: If you are a GCC member and brand new to curling, please consider joining GCC’s Novice League instead (first session is 11:30am on 9/11)