ARENA NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS //


CHAMPIONSHIPS


T e Garnet Eckstrand rink of the Kalamazoo Curling Club in Michigan won the men's title at the 2013 Arena National Championships. Team members include (l-r) Chris Gleaton, Marcus Gleaton, Kent Elliott, Garnet Eckstrand, and Tom Deater (not pictured).


Dakota Curling Club’s Darcy Ellarby and Kalamazoo’s Garnet Eckstrand


rinks became the very fi rst champions of the Arena National Champion- ships aſt er winning the event fi nals July 21 at the Lutheran Health Sports Center in Fort Wayne, Ind. "My team and I are very proud to have taken home the gold medal and


we want to thank the USCA for putting on such a great event," Ellarby said. "I think this new national championship will defi nitely help motivate arena curlers to develop competitive skills." T e four-day championship also featured seminars on a variety of top-


ics from team building to growing a curling club with Sandra McMakin, who coaches the Cassie Potter rink, one of nine teams qualifi ed for the 2014 Olympic Team Trials. Eckstrand’s team defeated the Nick Myers rink from the Dallas-Fort


Worth Curling Club, 7-6, in an extra end, while Ellarby’s squad swept past Sarah Walsh’s rink from the San Francisco Bay Area Curling Club, 9-3. "In that fi nal game – there were nerves fi ring in my hands that hadn’t


fi red in more than 20 years," said Eckstrand, who had Canada's Kevin Mar- tin as his second during his junior years. Eckstrand (Portage, Mich.) and teammates Kent Elliott (Kalamazoo,


Mich.), Marcus Gleaton (T ree Rivers, Mich.), Chris Gleaton (Kalamazoo, Mich.), and T omas Deater (Kalamazoo, Mich.) had control of the fi rst half of the men’s fi nal and a chance to break the game wide open in the third end. Eckstrand had a shot at possibly four points but his fi nal stone was heavy and Kalamazoo only scored a deuce. Myers was heavy with his fi nal stone of the fourth end and Kalamazoo stole a single to take a 4-2 advan- tage. Dallas-Fort Worth’s team of Myers (Mansfi eld, Texas), Jeff rey Knott


(Lancaster, Texas), Stephen Kleppe (Denton, Texas), and John Lambert (Frisco, Texas) scored a single in the fi ſt h and grabbed the game’s momen- tum in the sixth end when Eckstrand missed his fi nal shot in the sixth and the Texans stole three points for a 6-4 advantage. Aſt er blanking the sev- enth end, Kalamazoo sent the game into an extra end when Eckstrand was able to draw for two points in the eighth. A beautiful double takeout by Myers, who won the U.S. club national


title in 2007 and has competed at several U.S. men’s national champion- ships, with his fi rst stone of the extra end put his team in a position to win. Eckstrand used his fi nal stone to draw into the house. He was hoping to


T e Darcy Ellarby rink of the Dakota Curling Club in Minnesota won the women's title at the 2013 Arena National Championships. Team members include (l-r) Julie Wennberg, Robyn Farm, Jennifer Witschen, Darcy Ellarby, and Beth Lundquist.


bury the stone behind a corner guard in the four-foot but it sunk behind the tee-line, giving Myers the shot for the win. T e fi nal stone of the game by Myers needed to curl more as it fi nished and it ended up rubbing off of a stone in the top of the house and landed in second position as Kalamazoo stole the win. "It was wonderful to play against other quality teams and especially


against some high-quality skips. [Guy] Scholz, [Nick] Myers and others we played call a nice game – and knowing that they are going back to their arena clubs with that curling knowledge to share does nothing but good to help our game grow," Eckstrand said. "Let's keep the Arena Nationals as competitive as possible - while honoring its original intent." T e women’s fi nal was a little more straight forward as Ellarby and the


Dakota ladies – Jennifer Witschen (Eagan, Minn.), Robyn Farm (Shakopee, Minn.), Julie Wennberg (Burnsville, Minn.), and Beth Lundquist (Eagan, Minn.) – scored in the game’s fi rst four ends to build a 7-0 lead over San Francisco’s Walsh rink. Walsh (Oakland, Calif.) and her team of Kimberly Chapin (San Francisco, Calif.), Emily Schermerhorn (San Francisco, Calif.), and Jessica Tudor (Oakland, Calif.) earned three points in the fi ſt h end but didn’t get on the scoreboard again as the Minnesota ladies took home the title with a 9-3 victory. "Overall, I was very impressed with the ice conditions at Fort Wayne.


Also, having Sandra McMakin on site off ering seminars was really great," Ellarby said. "Too many arena curlers seem to suff er from the mindset that arena ice is always terrible so there is no hope of developing into a really good player. T e fact is, playing on more challenging ice conditions forces you to read ice and execute strategy fl awlessly, simply because the ice is not forgiving. A curler who works hard at developing competitive skills while playing on arena ice will only fi nd their skills amplifi ed when they get the opportunity to play on high quality ice." In the bronze medal games, Broadmoor's Guy Scholz led his Colorado


team to a 9-6 win over David Wiesen's team from the San Francisco Bay Area Curling Club. Kalamazoo's Stephanie Senneker helped her team de- feat Liana Knott's rink from Dallas-Fort Worth, 8-1, to win the women's bronze medal. ■


Editor's note: Look for more stories about the Arena National Champion- ships in the fi rst printed edition of the 2013-14 season in late September.


USA Curling (( 15


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30