GREEN BAY, Wis. — Jason Smith still calls out John Shuster for tricking him into going curling way back when they were teenagers in tiny Chisholm, Minn.
Shuster, the one who could already drive at the time, showed up at Smith’s house on a Sunday, tempting his buddy with a McDonald’s run.
They wound up at the Chis- holm Curling Club. More than a decade later, these longtime buddies are headed for an even bigger trip: to the Vancouver Olympics in February on Shuster’s team. Shuster is the skip, or captain, and Smith is his vice skip.
While Shuster figures they eventually made it to McDonald’s that day, Smith isn’t so sure.
“I’m still waiting for that,” Smith said with a grin, noting he’s probably earned himself a steak dinner by now.
“Well, interest, he probably has,” Shuster said. “I think I’ve paid him back many times over since then.”
The 27-year-old Shuster is returning for his second Olympics after bringing home bronze from the 2006 Turin Games. It was the Americans’ first Olympic curling medal and first in a major men’s competition since 1978. He expects to be back in the medal round this time if all goes as planned.
“It’s pretty neat,” U.S. men’s coach Phill Drobnick said. “They’ve got a pretty good relationship. It’s always good to build on that on the ice together. It would be nice to keep building (with another medal).”
Shuster needed Smith on his side to get to Vancouver. Smith, who will be the best man in Shuster’s wedding next summer, was living and working in Florida two years ago when he got the call from his old pal. Smith hadn’t curled in close to a year.
“Hey, I want to go back to the Olympics. Will you come back and play?” Shuster pleaded to the guy who grew up a quarter- mile from him in their hometown of 5,000 people in Minnesota’s Iron Range region. “I don’t see it happening any other way.”
It’s not like these two were talking Olympics during their junior curling days, but “we were very competitive people,” said Shuster, whose father curled in a men’s league and turned his son on to the game.
So, while Shuster and Smith are focused in on the task of reaching the podium, they realize this experience together, win or lose, is one they will cherish for years.
“I thought about this when I was taking him to McDonald’s, I did,” Shuster said.
