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0000017c-60f7-de77-ad7e-f3f739cf0000Arts & More airs Fridays at 7:50 a.m. and 4:20 p.m.Theme music: "Like A Beginner Again" by Dan Barry of Seas of Jupiter

Kalamazoo-Born Athlete To Compete In Curling Championships

Stephanie Senneker slides the stone at the USA Arena Curling National Championships. Pam Nelson is sweeping in front. Nicole Brinkmann is sweeping in back.
USA Curling

The USA Curling National Championships will be held at Wings Stadium February 14th through February 21st. Winning teams will go on to compete in the men’s and women’s World Championships which both take place in March.

Five years ago, Kalamazoo native Stephanie Senneker went to a curling workshop when the National Curling Championships came to town. Now Senneker will return to compete in the event this weekend.

“Yeah, it’ll be very exciting," says Senneker. "I’m really looking forward to being out there on the ice with a lot of people that I’ve watched curl for a few years and heard of. And now I get to be out there with them.”

For those who are less familiar with the sport, curling is played with two teams of four on an ice rink. One member of each team slides a large stone towards the center of the rink, while the other teammates sweep the ice to make the stone travel faster and straighter. The idea is to get eight stones as close to the red dot in the middle of the rink as possible in about an hour and ten minutes.

Team McCormick. From left to right: Stephanie Senneker, Emilia Juocys, Courtney George, and Debbie McCormick
Credit Emilia Juocys
Team McCormick. From left to right: Stephanie Senneker, Emilia Juocys, Courtney George, and Debbie McCormick

Senneker plays on Debbie McCormick’s team. McCormick is the team’s skip – the captain.

Unlike some sports, curling teams are named after their skip, not the city they’re based in.

Mike Modugno is the director of public relations and broadcaster for Wings Stadium and the Kalamazoo Wings. He says with so much talent, it’s anybody’s game.

“I don’t think there are any Cinderella stories out there," he says.

"I think there are some teams that are positioned better than others, Team McCormick probably very close after talking to Pete Fensen about his team’s chances of moving on. He felt pretty confident there.”

As for the men’s team, Modugno says Team Schuster is also a contender.

“I think the men’s draw a little more even out there. The women’s teams were probably the best action in 2010. When you look at, from beginning to end, it came down to the Thursday tie-breakers to get teams into the semi. So talking to USA Curling, they feel it’s going to be probably that close if not closer in 2015,” says Modugno. 

Modugno says the curling championships are expected to bring about 15,000 people to Kalamazoo, boosting the local economy.

For fans, it’s a chance to see Olympic curlers up close. In a few years, younger curlers like Senneker could be among them.

“It’s definitely been on my mind and I’m going to keep working and hope that it happens someday," says Senneker. "Our skip herself is a three time Olympian so that’s a really cool thing for her. She grew up in the sport and has been playing it since she was tiny. And she’s played all over the world and three Olympics, so she’s got a lot of international experience. And that’s been really great for us too, having that experience behind us.”

Senneker says there’s a lot to love about curling—anyone from age five to 85 can play and there’s a culture of camaraderie.

“And even if you’re competitive, when you get back off the ice it’s a sport where your expected to go and you sit down with the people you just played against and socialize and just enjoy each other’s company," she says.

"So it’s a neat sport in that sense and another thing that keeps me coming back is the challenge of it. It’s a very challenging sport—a lot more so I think than people realize when they watch it on TV. It’s sort of like a puzzle that’s never ending.”

Next week the Kalamazoo Curling Club will host several beginner lessons on curling, so Kalamazoo residents can fall in love with it like Senneker did.

“I hope that they get a lot of people out there to try it. And maybe learn a lot about the sport and teach ,other people about the sport and keep growing it here in the United States,” says Senneker.