[Music] Lakeland Currents, your public affairs program for north central Minnesota.

Closed captioning is made possible by Bemidji Regional Airport, serving the region with daily flights to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

More information available at bemidjiairport.org.

Welcome to Lakeland Currents.

I'm your host Todd Haugen.

Our topic today is the Bemidji Curling Club and our guests on Lakeland Currents are the president of the board of directors of the Bemidji Curling Club, Dave Wilford is here, and from the board of directors Bill Sanford is here as well.

Gentlemen, welcome to Lakeland Currents.

Thank you Todd.

We are coming into the time of year, in fact by the time this show is on the air, I guess, we will be pretty much in the time of year when action is happening at the Bemidji Curling Club.

But the curling club is busy all year, isn't it?

I believe I went to a wedding reception there, that was in late summer or fall at some point.

Todd our main season starts towards the beginning of October, middle of October.

That's when we put in our ice and prepare for our curling season and then curling season ends towards the end of March into April sometimes, but that's just the curling part of the curling club.

We also have indoor event available during the summer, weddings, entertainment, other inside activities for the public.

Some people may not be aware that there is a curling club in Bemidji in the first place or where it is.

Where is it located?

It's located in the north end of town, right behind Country Kitchen and Perkins in the city park, the Bemidji City Park.

It's part of the Neilson Reise hockey rink, the old hockey rink and then the curling club is built right on the end of that with the softball fields and the skate park in the same location.

How would you describe the sport of curling?

Well to me I've only been curling for about 12 years but it's very addicting.

To me it's very similar to golf in the summer.

It's an individual sport but yet you play, can play as a team to achieve, to compete.

It's a very good fellowship sport.

I've met a lot of good people like Bill and others at the curling club, curling on teams or in bonspiels.

And for those that don't know what a bonspiel is, a bonspiel is a name of a a tournament in curling where you can compete as a team against others over a period of time in a bracket to try to win.

So it's a very fun sport.

I can say I could talk about it for a long time.

Do you have to have a team to compete?

Typically, you know, yes you typically don't go out alone.

We do have some leagues in the afternoon where you can just show up and they'll put teams together to curl, but typically there's either doubles, which isn't as common, and teams of four is more common in curling and so yeah, you put together a team and we've got lots of leagues in the evenings and some afternoon leagues so people could curl and get involved with the club.

And there are people that are beginners there, aren't there?

Oh absolutely.

Yeah.

We also have an offering through Community Ed for people that know nothing about curling.

They can sign up for a Community Ed class and learn about curling and get enough background, so they're ready to jump in.

And watching the specials about the Bemidji Curling Club on the Lakeland Public Television website.

I learned that there were high school classes and BSU classes about curling that were held at the club.

Are those still happening?

Yes, those are are still happening.

In fact, when I ran the numbers to prepare for this we have close to potentially 300 Junior curlers that participate in high school curling.

High School Leagues, our Community Ed, Junior Curling grades 1 through 12 that we offer and then a BSU class that we have so and we have probably arguably the biggest Junior program in the country for Junior curling.

Now there are plenty of towns our size in the state of Minnesota, not to mention all these other northern states, and they don't all have curling clubs.

Where did this curling club come from, how long has it been around?

Well, it started actually in 1935, which is a long, long time ago.

Back then it was a natural ice so they had a shell of a building but it wasn't insulated and when it got cold enough outside that's when they'd make ice, you know, and basically they just flood it and let it freeze and you know the first club back in '35 was between Second and Third Avenue, or rather Second and Third Street on America Avenue.

Right.

Kind of where the current Cenex is.

Yeah around where that Cenex is.

And then it was only there for about a year and then it moved to a sports arena that was built as one of the first WPA projects in Bemidji and that was on 7th Street and America Avenue and it stayed there until 1967 when the club moved to where they are now.

And you know there's some confusion about that location, you know.

There's the ice arena that isn't currently being used now and that entire building is owned by the city.

But the way it started Todd, the way it happened, was the Bemidji Curling Club at the time actually paid for their half and built their half of it and the city built the other half and then the club donated the whole, their side of it to the city and I think the reason for that was to get some help with maintenance and different things ongoing because it really is something for the community you know.

So yeah.

Interesting background and how it got started.

We have a lease with the city for our half of the building and it's worked out well.

You know it's been a great location for the club but you know we lost our ice plant last, what two years ago now, two years ago, and by some good luck and having some really good people in the club, one in particular, Jamie Quello, we were able to get a temporary plant to keep it running through that next season and then we installed our permanent new plant this past summer and we're running on that new plant now.

But we had to do a lot of fundraising, that was a expensive proposition, and it ended up costing a lot more even because of Covid and delays and delivery and it's been kind of a hassle, and we've been pretty successful fundraising and had a lot of help from George W Neilson Foundation as you know.

You well know, they're pretty much heroes in this community.

Absolutely.

They do so much.

But a lot of businesses stepped up and helped us out and the members and we're still raising some money you know.

We've still got things to do, but we've upgraded you know with that new plant now we should be in good shape and we've added some live streaming so this year people can tune in and watch league nights if they want on YouTube and they can watch any sheet of ice curling so if they've got a friend or family member that curls they can check in and see how they're doing.

So the curling club has its own channel on YouTube or is it on?

Yep, we have a YouTube channel.

And that's where you can see those?

Absolutely.

If they do a search for Bemidji curling on YouTube our channel will show up.

Right.

So those ice plants are expensive.

It's impressive that you could get it all fixed up that quickly.

Well usually, from what I've been told, and what you know, what we found is typically when a plant dies a club usually is out of business for a year, they usually lose a season, and we didn't lose anything so we were very fortunate to have that happen.

That said it's been kind of some tough times for the club hasn't it in this through the Covid years especially.

Well, yeah, we'll start with Covid.

That had an impact to our membership because everything was shut down.

The club shut down for a a brief part of a season but it did impact people's ability to get out and do things.

So coming after that to try to rebuild membership and get people back into the club, then having the ice plant fail on us right at the end of the season, which was lucky that we lost only one week of our curling season that season and we acted quickly as a board and were able to get a plant specced out and ordered.

But when we ordered that plant it was out many, many months, 10 months before it would even show up, so that's potentially show up, if it even got built on schedule, so that's where the temporary plant by, you know, Jamie Quello and his business helped us out very well to get us through that next season limping along, but it worked really well actually and then finally our other plant showed up and we got it installed just before this season and we're still, it isn't 100%, but it's making ice and we're curling.

We were able to get it installed by the middle of October so we could get ice and host a major national event here, the Youth Olympic Winner, a mixed doubles, a qualifier for youth teams to go to South Korea to represent the United States in World curling.

Is your membership about the same as it was for the winter of '19 through '20 before Covid really hit?

It built up quite a bit last year, we had 240 plus members and we're on pace this year to at least reach that or more.

We have surprisingly some really some new members joining.

I was just processing new member registrations today, so it was, it's refreshing to see and we're looking really forward to this season and most of our leagues are at capacity for the evening leagues and we have some openings for the early leagues, but we're looking forward to seeing more numbers.

And it sounds like it's a sport for all ages and certainly both genders, we know that.

For sure.

It's interesting, when we look at the demographics, I don't have the data in front of me, but our membership is the highest in our youth membership and then our older members past retirement and that kind of age.

It's the middle age of our membership that's the lowest, that we need to try to target and get them to come.

But as you know, families and kids are busy with many activities and you know getting them into curling is just we're one of them, but it is very, very much a sport for all ages, a sport for all genders and we're very open to that.

And I'm sure it helps the rather long winter go a little more quickly.

Yes.

Yeah absolutely gives you something to do.

Back to the building for a moment.

So the skating rink part of that building, which again of course belongs to the city, and what happens to it is their business, but does the curling club have any use for that space?

We've been talking with the city, as you know had our ice plant situation, to try to understand what the relationship can be between the curling club and the Neilson Reise side.

If you've followed some of the city council meetings in the past few years, you've seen that they did some work to try to understand what the possibilities are for themselves, for other organizations in town, pickle ball and others, going back to an ice rink and that, but we just haven't taken any time recently, but I'm looking very much forward to making a relationship with the new city manager because that's who we'd have to work with, the city manager, parks and rec department.

Try to understand what possibilities there might be.

And we will be working to renew our lease, it's up here pretty soon, but we have a 10 year extension that we've already applied for and in that discussion I'm hoping we can see what possibilities there are for us, too.

This is all speculative but the ice plant for that rink that was there is a goner too as I understand it, is your new ice plant sufficient to put ice in that part of the building as well if you wanted to do that?

When we specced out our ice plant we didn't spec it out to run two sheets of ice or entertain the idea of possibly having a skating rink that we could use for curling ice.

Some arenas do that.

If we ever had a major event at the Sanford Center or one year during Covid we actually had a junior bonspiel where so many teams registered, we had to rent the BCA, a sheet of ice at the BCA, and we put five sheets of curling ice on that for that event which is transformation of the ice surface but when we maybe briefly talked about the idea of possibly using the other side.

But we don't believe there would be enough curling need to have that many sheets for us to take that on.

I'm sure it would drive up your cost of operation quite a bit.

That's the other issue, too, you know, it's expensive to run an ice plant, you know, because that compressor runs 24/7 you know all winter and so pretty big electric bills.

You know we had one, well I guess we had basically one full-time employee and mostly full-time and then some part-time, a couple part-time people too that run the lounge upstairs, and that's something to point out too is you know I don't know if people are aware, if people are at all interested in curling, and really want to see what it's all about, you know, Monday through Thursday nights we have league curling and people can stop in to the curling club, there's a lounge upstairs and they can have a beer and I think a pizza now too.

Right.

They could order a pizza if they want and you know just have an evening and sit up there and maybe with some friends and there's a great viewing area where you can look out over the arena and watch curling.

So you know somebody who's looking for something different to do and that is kind of interested in it might be a fun night out.

So yeah.

Is it expensive to get into curling, do you have to buy very much special equipment?

I would say no, not necessarily.

In fact we as a club have some equipment for beginners.

When you take Community Ed we supply the equipment as part of that program and then as novice come and curl on our open curling nights we would have, you know, brooms and sliders, the items you would need, warm clothes you supply them, but I would say no it's when you start getting into your more competitive curling and specializing in your equipment that the price can go up, but that's true with any sport I guess.

But it's not expensive.

Our memberships are very reasonable compared to other club memberships when you get into curling on a league and being a club member.

But we do have a membership for a day if somebody does want to come in and either try curling or curl on a league as a sub for just one day we have a very reasonable rate at the club for that.

I would assume like most sports though if you're going to try it, it's probably a good idea to get some pointers at least, if not take some classes in it first.

Yes and that's where the Community Ed offerings are very, very good for people to take so that they can get, you know, the training they need to do it.

But we do try, throughout the season, try to offer learn to curls when we have time.

Right.

And we just haven't set those on our calendar yet.

We're waiting for our other events to come into play for the season and so we know when we have open time for that.

Many years ago I taught cross country skiing lessons at Buena Vista and I would talk to people that tried skiing and they'd say I don't like that, that's a lot of work, why do you think that's fun.

And I said, well I don't think you did it quite right, you know, and I would assume again that curling could be frustrating or you could think gee I'm not, how do people even do this, if you didn't sort of have an idea what you're doing if you're just going to go out and throw some rocks.

Yeah, people pick it up pretty quickly though.

You know, I mean, it takes a long time to get really skilled at it but to basically just go out and curl, you know, I think a Community Ed class and you could jump on one of the less competitive leagues and do just fine and have a great time.

You know the best thing about curling, in my opinion, is just the companionship and the camaraderie of the sport, you know.

I don't know of any other sport where, you know, before you curl a match you shake hands with everybody and then at the end of the curling you shake hands again and say good curling you know.

And it's a lot of fun.

So the reputation of this town and its curling club is pretty much known in circles all around the country, if not around the world, isn't it?

Yes the Bemidji Curling Club has quite a reputation of competitive curlers all the way up to the world and Olympic level.

If you ever visit our arena and come and go upstairs to the viewing area and look out, there's banners that represent state champions, national champions, world champions, and Olympic champions.

Bemidji brought home the first medal.

Pete Fenson's rink brought home the first bronze medal in USA Curling years ago and John Shuster curled on a team from Bemidji and they recently brought home a medal so.

And I could list a lot of names and the nice thing about our club is you'll be at league and some of those names are walking around with you.

We have three Hall of Fame curlers at our club and many of the people that have participated at the Olympic level just curling.

There have been some teams of women from this area too that have gone to the Olympics, right?

Oh yeah.

We've got many, many Olympic curlers.

The Johnson girls went there and their rink brought home a national or a world title I believe, a junior title, back in the day, and it's quite daunting for me to try to remember it all because there's a lot of historic, competitive champions from our club.

That has to mean a lot to the club I would think to get that reputation worldwide and to have it local as well, to be watching the Winter Olympics and see Pete Fenson on there doing some of the commentary.

That's a big deal, isn't it?

Oh it's a very big deal for our club and our community in the sport of curling.

So but it's tough to get to that level I would assume, no sport is easy, at least not any sport I can think of, I mean to get to a really high level.

But it sounds like you don't have to get to a real high level to have a really good time curling.

No you don't.

We have our share of competitive events at the club for our local Juniors or adult curlers.

But we have a fair amount of fun bonspiels where people could come and have a really good time.

And one thing that I want to add on to what Bill said about the cadence of playing a game or an event is the greeting before and after the game, it's a self-governing game.

There's no officials out there watching you.

You as players and teams have to govern yourselves on the ice and know the rules, know the etiquette.

And then there's a tradition in curling called broom stacking that I really try to push on the teams I play on and that's after the game you go upstairs, and we have tables upstairs for each sheet, and you sit at the table with the team you just played and get to know each other, you know.

And it's a really cool tradition and one of the things I remember learning from the people that introduced me to curling and that's how I got to meet so many people at the club and in this community just because we finished a curling game and went and met each other and we do that at leagues every week.

For somebody that's new in the community I can't think of a better way to meet a bunch of really fine people is to get involved in the curling club.

Yeah especially in the winter time when options are somewhat limited especially for real social type things.

Yeah.

So what's on the schedule for competition this winter at the Bemidji Curling Club?

Well I mentioned the event we had early in November, that's passed, but coming up in a couple weeks we're going to host the U18 Junior Curling, Minnesota State Junior Curling Playdowns and that's where kids 18 or under, teams of boys, teams of girls, will be curling to represent Minnesota in the Junior U18 Nationals, which will be in Denver again this year.

And I just looked at the draw.

I think we have three teams from Bemidji competing in that: one boys team and two girls teams.

So that's going to be out of the 13 teams that are coming.

Minnesota itself is a region, so all the teams from Minnesota have to compete together.

We will be hosting the Senior Men's State in January and that's a Minnesota Curling Association event where men's teams of a certain age, from I believe it's 50 and on up, there's different divisions, they come to Minnesota and compete for this for the Minnesota Senior Men's Championship, and that's all we have that I know of national or state events.

But then we have our Blue Ox Open Bonspiel.

An open means you can have any type of curler on your team, men, women, Juniors, adults.

It's a really good opportunity for a family to curl together in a competitive type event, but it's more of a fun, in you don't, you might win a plaque or a trophy but no money or national ranking.

Then we do plan to have our Blue Ox Men's Bonspiel.

I believe that's going to be an open this year, too, we decided I think.

So that's going to be an open bonspiel, but that is going to be a more competitive cash payout for the teams that compete in that one and that's going to be in March.

Are all of the events that happen at the curling club open to the public, can you come and watch?

Absolutely.

Yeah we encourage folks to come in and check it out.

So and how do you find out about that schedule of competition if you didn't keep track of all the things you just mentioned.

We have a very good web presence.

Bemidjicurling.org online and that's where we have the history of our club, the calendar of our events, when our leagues are, when our bonspiels are and things like that.

If people are looking to rent the venue for one thing or another that's when they can see when it's open if they choose to try to pick a day.

We have a couple of Christmas parties and the thing about renting the venue during the winter is you have the option of getting the ice or not.

If you want to rent it and have a Christmas party or a team building event for a business or an organization you could rent the ice along with that.

There's the upstairs lounge available with service and a kitchen.

We have a full kitchen you could use for preparing meals and serving food and we have many options to work with people on that in addition to the curling that we provide.

And the ice is out, I would assume, what spring through late fall?

Yeah we start taking the ice out early April, mid-April, and then it's out until probably October.

So if you have an event you want to try to book at any time of year just check in with you folks.

Weddings as you mentioned.

We've held garage sales, fundraising events.

I don't know if you remember back in the day the Roller Babes used to rent it from us and do their roller derby.

Yeah.

So we talked about memberships, and I know we only have a few minutes left of our show, but I know that's just one of the ways that the Bemidji Curling Club is funded.

We talked about generous grants from entities like the the Neilson Foundation.

Are there other funding sources for the curling club?

Well rental, you know, for as Dave said weddings, different events, parties, things like that helps us generate some money.

Anything else you can think of Dave?

Basically event rentals, our memberships and general public donations, yeah.

We, you know, have minimal sales of curling supplies and things like that.

So the grants that have been received by the club were mainly for things like the ice plant?

Yeah it was basically a capital campaign, I chaired that and wrote a lot of the grants and because it was a big, big hill to climb.

You know it's ice plants, expensive different things.

What's the total that we're at now Dave?

About three.

We're just, yeah, we're about 380 just shy of our, we had a goal of about 400 and or something and we're just shy of that.

But you know when we did that, and Bill did an outstanding job, Bill it was great to have him as a part of our team, but you know we had the ice plant, we had some debt that the Club owed due to Covid and the high cost and low membership that we had to take care of.

We did a budget for the streaming equipment that we needed to stream our events and our leagues online for families and members to watch.

Some improvements around the club.

Upgrading some equipment and stuff and we've been able to reach most of that, but you know, as Bill said, some of the costs of things were a little more than we budgeted due to Covid, in the plant area and the creating of the ice so.

Final words gentlemen?

We have like a minute left of our show.

I'd just like to remind folks to go to the YouTube channel, Bemidji Curling.

Starting next week, Monday through Thursday evenings, we'll be streaming our league curling.

So if people want to actually watch some league curling and see what it's all about they could, they can do that on the YouTube channel.

Okay, Dave.

And come in person if you like to watch.

I'm sure you can find someone to explain the game to you if you're upstairs.

And we have some of the best curling viewing in our club because of the two levels we have.

Yeah.

Terrific.

Well guys we sure appreciate you coming to see us here today on Lakeland Currents and I hope you have a great winter, it sounds like you will.

We will.

Thanks for the opportunity too Todd, we appreciate it.

Yes thank you, Todd.

Glad to do it.

Bill Sanford and Bemidji Curling Club president Dave Wilford on our Lakeland Currents this time.

I'm Todd Haugen.

We thank you for joining us and thank you for your support of Lakeland PBS, and hopefully we'll see you next time on Lakeland Currents.