Regan Mizuno

 

 

 

 

 

Media:  Curling:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2010:

 

http://coloradocommunitynewspapers.com/articles/2010/02/05/littleton_independent

 

 

 

Slick trip to Olympic bid begins here

By John Meyer
The Denver Post

 

 

Posted: 02/20/2009 12:30:00 AM MST

Updated: 02/20/2009 02:34:05 AM MST

 

 

Regan Mizuno of Highlands Ranch won’t be competing in the trials, but she keeps her skills sharp at The Ice Ranch. (John Leyba, The Denver Post)

 

 

Since curling made its debut as a medal sport in 1998, Olympic historian David Wallechinsky hasn’t been very kind to its practitioners in his quadrennial guidebooks, “The Complete Book of the Winter Olympics.”

“It does further the International Olympic Committee’s movement toward democracy by allowing non-athletes to take part in the Winter Olympics,” he wrote in his last book.

Ouch.

“Ho-ho,” said Pete Fenson, the “skip” or captain of the U.S. men’s team that won a bronze medal at the 2006 Turin Games. “I would love to get that guy on the ice, and then he could realize what a nonathletic event it is.”

Fenson and dozens more of America’s top curlers are flocking to the Front Range to display their athleticism in the Olympic

Extras

 

 

• Video: Take a slide down the curling lane from the stone’s point of view.
• View a gallery of photos from the Broomfield ice.

 

Trials, which will be held Saturday through Feb. 28 at the Broomfield Event Center. Eight days from now, the first members of the 2010 U.S. Olympic team will be known, and they will be curlers.They believe they also qualify as athletes.

Delivering a 44-pound hunk of Scottish granite accurately across a sheet of ice requires a high degree of balance and coordination, they point out. It takes well-honed skill to put just the right spin on the rock to make its path curl the right amount — hence the name of the sport — while processing variables caused by ice conditions and temperatures.

Then there are the sweepers, team members who work the brooms furiously while the rock slides …  and slides … and slides a little more … down the ice.

“You have strength and flexibility, as well as conditioning,” said Fenson, who comes from the curling hotbed of Bemidji, Minn. “The sweepers are required to be fit in order to sweep the rock. I mean, it may look silly on TV, but it really isn’t.”

John Shuster played for Fenson’s team at the Turin Games. Now he’s skipping his own four-man team.

“You have to be fairly fit, very fit, for sweepers,” said Shuster, who lives in Duluth, Minn. “You’re talking sweeping as fast as you can sweep for miles in games.”

Games, which have 10 rounds or “ends,” last nearly three hours. The Trials winner will have played 11 or 12 games over eight days.

“It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” said Debbie McCormick, a 2003 world champion from Rio, Wis. “We always look at it one rock, one end, one game at a time.”

Denver’s estimated 100 active curlers, who compete at The Ice Ranch in Littleton, are thrilled to have the big event coming to their backyard. Especially Regan Mizuno, a professional singer who aspires to compete at curling’s elite level some day.

“It means everything, because that’s where I want to be in a few years,” Mizuno said. “It’s my passion.”

This time around, Mizuno will have to settle for being a spectator and a gig singing at the closing ceremonies.

Mizuno grew up in Saskatchewan, where curling is an integral part of the culture because it offers social interaction several times a week for families and friends.

“The curling lounge was a great place for people to watch curling, discuss strategy and have a hot toddy or two,” Mizuno said.

Curling, she added, is a sport for a lifetime with the ability to unite generations.

“We’ve got teenagers and people all the way up to their 80s,” Mizuno said. “My grandma curls in her 80s in Canada, and she’s good.”

Curling has been a big hit for NBC during the Olympics because viewers say they find it tense and intriguing.

“It’s the fastest-growing Olympic sport in terms of viewership and support,” said KieAnn Brownell, president of the Metro Denver Sports Commission, which brought the event to Broomfield. “During the last Olympic Games in February 2006, when the U.S. had a team that actually medaled and gained a lot of interest, USA Curling received over 100 million legitimate hits on their website. We feel this is an emerging sport.”

Maybe that’s because chess on ice, as it’s been described, is infinitely complex for players yet easy for viewers to understand. Only one or two players are active at any given time. There’s only one rock in motion, unless one is knocking previously thrown rocks aside.

“Curling is a funny game,” said Shuster, not meaning to be taken literally. “It’s pretty mesmerizing to somebody who’s never seen it before.”

John Meyer: 303-954-1616 or jmeyer@denverpost.com

 

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Curling Olympic Trials

Where: Broomfield Event Center

When: First session 4 p.m. Saturday, daily through Feb. 28

Format: Ten men’s teams and 10 women’s teams compete in single round-robin play. The top four are seeded 1-4 for playoffs. The winning teams advance to the Olympics.

Field of play: Five sheets of ice will be used to accommodate five games simultaneously. Games typically run 2 hours, 45 minutes.

Tickets: Single-session tickets range from $11.50-26.50. www.denversports.org.

 

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