COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—Brett Gleeson tells strangers he’s a curler training for the Olympics.
They look at him, notice his beer gut and begin to chuckle.
“A lot of them think I’m 12-ounce curling,” Gleeson said.
He tells them he’s serious about the quirky sport with stones and brooms.
“Is that played on ice?” the strangers ask Gleeson.
In the Colorado Springs area, it’s played at few locations, early in the morning and late at night, on jagged ice gouged by hockey players and figure skaters—stumbling blocks in attempts to turn curling mainstream.
Growth in curling—four-person teams push 44-pound rocks toward circular targets—has been slow but steady heading into the U.S. Olympic trials Feb. 21-28 in Broomfield.
USA Curling membership increased by 29 percent to 14,395 after the 2002 Olympics. USA Curling is one of five World Curling Federation organizations with 10,000-plus members, joining Canada, Japan, Scotland and Switzerland.
The Broadmoor Curling Club, one of five USA Curling-sanctioned clubs in Colorado, boasts about 80 members, who pay $40 in annual dues to play primarily on Friday nights at the Colorado Sports and Events Center in Monument.
Gleeson also plays at 4:30 a.m. twice a week with his younger brother, Brock, who runs a directional drilling company with him; Jim Hideman, who owns a telecommunications firm; and Jerry Van Brunt Jr., part of The Broadmoor team that won the 1983 national title—the group is a long shot for the 2010 Vancouver Games.
“You think more people would do it,” Hideman said. “They don’t, so we’re going to try to change that.”
The Olympics provide the best opportunity, even though the U.S. has struggled. Its bronze in 2006 in Turin, Italy, is the only medal since curling was readopted as an Olympic sport in 1998.
When CNBC broadcast 80 hours of curling in Turin, it attracted an average of 876,000 viewers during a three-hour weekday time slot, a 579 percent increase from the network’s February 2005 average.
“People think it’s weird when you first see it,” Brett Gleeson said. “I thought ‘Survivor’ was weird. I’m hooked on it now.”
Added Brock Gleeson, “It’s like golf. You keep going back in golf because you make that one good swing. It’s the same with curling.”
Unlike golf courses, places to curl near Colorado Springs are extremely limited.
The Broadmoor club’s only option other than Monument is Littleton since most local ice arenas are booked with hockey games and figure skating tournaments.
A curling rink would cost $1.5 million to construct.
“Our club will not grow without additional ice,” Broadmoor member Kathy Bannick said. “We have plenty of people that come to learn to curl, but we don’t have enough ice time to be able to build the club.”
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