Northern Wisconsin curling club fosters community

In Northern Wisconsin, curling is bringing people together.

The Rhinelander “Hodag” Curling Club started a little over three years ago after a group of passionate curlers wanted to introduce the sport to the northern area of the state.

Today, the curling club is fostering a community for people of all ages and abilities in Northern Wisconsin.

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Curling has deep ties to Wisconsin, with two of the earliest clubs in the nation being formed in Milwaukee in 1847 and Portage in 1850.

The Winter Olympic sport is played with a team of four people, with players taking turns sliding a 44-pound polished granite stone on ice toward a circular target. Players aim to get the stone closest to the center of the target, with other team members sweeping the ice in front of the moving stone with brooms to assist in its speed and direction.

Rhinelander Curling Club President Steven O’Keefe explained how he and the rest of the founders created the club after noticing a need for a local curling club from a Facebook post. 

O’Keefe joined forces with fellow curlers and founders Terri and Mike Gleason, Geoff Goodland, and Peter Chladil to create the club.

“We’ve had people come from hour drives from Lac du Flambeau, from Minocqua, from Eagle River, Tomahawk,” O’Keefe said. “So to have a nice opportunity to curl that far north in Wisconsin, there’s interest, not just in Rhinelander, but in the surrounding communities too.”

Alexa Megna has been a member of the club for nearly six months, and explained one of the sport’s best parts is the social aspect.

“Being off your phone, being offline, doing something physical and doing something with people of all abilities and different walks of life, there’s something really awesome about that,” Megna said.

O’Keefe shared a similar sentiment.

“I’ve curled for nearly 25 years, and some of the best friends that I have are curlers,” he said. “Curling starts when you go out into a league and play in that league against a team, but then that’s only half of it. The other half is you come in off the ice, whether you win or lost, and you sit together at a table and you share either a cocktail, a dinner, a soft drink, whatever it might be, and then you sit and chat, you know, not necessarily even about the game, just about life and friendships and things like that.”

The curling club is available to individuals of any age and ability level, with the ages of members ranging from teenagers to individuals in their 90s. The club also offers “Learn to Curl,” opportunities for those without much experience.

Currently, the Rhinelander Curling Club rents their ice space from the Rhinelander Ice Arena with time curling time for participants available on Sunday nights and Monday mornings. In the future, O’Keefe said the club is hoping to have its own dedicated ice space to expand their availability. 

The club also offers leagues from November through March for more experienced curlers.