Curling is a sport that very few people know much about, but to Mike Moore and Nick Young it’s a way of life.
Moore and Young are on one of 10 teams that will be competing in the 2003 USA Curling Junior National Championships. The bonspiel (tournament) will be held at the Broomstones Curling Club in Wayland, Mass., just outside of Boston, starting tomorrow through Sunday, February 2.
The other teams partaking in the event are from all over the United States including Alaska, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Utah, Illinois and Massachusetts.
“Our World Junior team last year didn’t finish high enough in Worlds, so our country had to requalify for Worlds. So, the team that we choose to send to Europe to requalify gets a berth in the Nationals. They are the 10th team,” Moore said.
Since the U. S. is currently not qualified for the 2003 Junior World Championship this means that the team that wins Nationals won’t be able to participate in Worlds this year.
However, had the Juniors qualified the winning team would have gone to Europe to partake in the World Championship. In order to participate in Junior Nationals one must be under 21 years of age by July 30, 2002.
The bonspiel starts out as a round-robin, where each team plays the other nine teams. Then the top four teams with the best record advance to the semifinals and the winners of the semis meeting in the final match.
Each team consists of four people and one alternate. The four positions are lead, second, third and skip.
The lead player delivers the first two stones, the second delivers the second two stone; and the third delivers the third two stones. Each player alternates with their opponent between throws.
The skip is the player who holds the broom as a target for the other players to aim their shots at. They throw the final two stones. Moore is the third and Young is the second on their team. They play with lead Jordan Atherine, from Owens Community College, and skip Tyler George, who is from the University of Minnesota at Duluth. Moore’s younger brother, Tom, who is a senior in high school, is the alternate.
“Curling is a very social sport,” Moore said. “This is my fifth year at Nationals, so every year I meet all the other players up there and talked with [George] on the phone about being on our team. The guys he previously played with didn’t want to play anymore, so we picked him up on our team.”
Last year was the first year these four guys played together and their first game was at Nationals. They finished 3-6 in the bonspiel.
Moore went to college at the University of Miami (Fla.) last year and transferred to Bowling Green this year.
“I was going to take four years off to go to school,” Moore said. “I went down there. Then [Young] called me and asked me if I wanted to play with him. I said yeah I’ll come up and play for a week. Then I ended up transferring up here so we can play and we’ll actually have a chance to win.”
Moore and Young have been in four or five tournaments so far this year. Most of the tournaments they play in our invitational tournaments, which means that clubs send invitations to other clubs and all a team has to do is sign up.
“They are always looking for more teams,” Moore said.
Both Moore and Young got involved with curling at a young age.
“My parents were always real involved with curling when I was younger,” Moore said. “I was always real interested in it. I waited for my chance to get out there.”
Young had a different reason for getting involved with the sport.
“I grew up around here and my friends wanted to play hockey,” he said. “We didn’t have enough money for me to play hockey, so my mom asked me if I wanted to try curling right across the hall. One of her good friends did it, so I said ‘okay.'”
Moore and Young also participate in College Regionals and College Nationals and are members of the Bowling Green Curling Club.
