Key Points

• Two Ithacans have begun a thriving curling club in Ithaca

• The Winter Olympics have drastically increased interest

• Their goal in the future: keep expanding

For Ithaca natives Dan Hazlitt and Justine Vanden Heuvel, the Winter Olympics have come at the perfect time for their new curling club in Ithaca.

“We want to try to help people who are seeing curling, loving curling in the Olympics and want to come out and give it a try,” Hazlitt said.

Hazlitt, along with his wife Justine, are founders of the Finger Lakes Curling Club, which began in the fall of 2017. In its second iteration here in early 2018, the club, which originally consisted of 7 teams, has now grown to 10 teams. They meet Saturday nights at the Ithaca Recreation Center for a couple of hours to simply curl and have fun.

Monica Touesnard, a member of the club, said it’s more than just the curling that drives her to the rink every week.

“It’s just a nice way to get out of the house, especially since we’re in the winter we might as well be doing a winter sport,” she said. “We’re getting to meet other people that we normally wouldn’t have met, it’s great.”

Olympics Influence

Besides the increase from 7 to 10 teams in the spring session, the demand for curling in Ithaca has increased drastically over the past few weeks, according to Hazlitt.

In addition to the 10 teams that rotate playing each other each Saturday night, Hazlitt and Vanden Heuvel proudly host “Learn to Curl” sessions, in which they teach a small class the ins-and-outs, etiquette, strategy and technique of curling.

Hazlitt said the two sessions they offered a few weeks ago instantly sold out, and they are planning even more sessions and are trying to include more teams into the club, since the demand is so high.

“We had a lot of people trying to get in but the league was full by the time our second ‘Learn to Curl’ even happened and we’ve had to say no to probably 3 or 4 teams,” he said. “People really want to do it and we’re going to hope to accommodate them in the spring/summer.”

Vanden Heuvel attributes all the interest lately to all the Olympic curling coverage on television.

“We’re getting a lot of interest lately since Americans are seeing curling featured in the Olympics,” she said. “Due to the new interest, we’re planning to do a shorter (6 week) spring league as well so that more people get to try this great sport.”

Goals for the Future

Ithaca’s new curling club joins the likes of the big clubs that exist in Rochester and Utica.

He said his dream for the club is to expand into a bigger organization, similar to those in Rochester and Utica, with its own building where members can use key-cards to come in and practice and socialize.

“We would have a youth program, there would be leagues just about every night, and we’d have a much more connected community to Utica and Rochester because we would be having bonspiels, which are curling tournaments,” he said. “We would have more events and it becomes a much more social club, so that’s always the goal of any arena curling club.”

Even more than that, their biggest goal is to simply expose Ithaca to the wonderful sport of curling.

“Ithacans tend to be active and interested in trying new things,” Vanden Heuvel said. “Curling isn’t necessarily about being athletic, it’s about making good decisions and having a strategy that the players on a team can implement. That’s what makes this a great team sport.”

“Curling is kind of quirky and Ithaca is kind of quirky. I think curling is a wonderful sport, it allows all ages to do it, all demographics, and I just think it’s a really good fit for Ithaca,” added Hazlitt. “I’m just excited that people are excited about curling.”