Junior Nationals recap
Huge shout-out to all our volunteers
We hosted the 2022 USA Curling Junior National Championships at the Sentry Curling Center April 23-30. We had 125 athletes/coaches in attendance from all over the country including Alaska, Oregon, New York, North Dakota and Pennsylvania. Korey Dropkin, current U.S. men's national champion and a three-time U.S. junior men's champion, was our guest speaker at the opening ceremony. The competition also included five teams with roots in our club as curlers and coaches. Team Tamboli, coached by our own Lori Kawleski won the Junior Women's National Championship! Lori’s team will be competing in the World Junior Curling Championships in Fussen, Germany, in 2023.
We had about 130 volunteers supporting the event with some official and ice crew coming from out of town. We were also delighted to have volunteer support from the Sentry retiree group. Though once again, our membership came through to support this event in amazing fashion. Supporting an eight-day event with food, ticket sales/greeting, and ice making is a huge undertaking! I cannot tell you how many wonderful comments I received about the extraordinary volunteer support, both in quantity and quality of service.
This event will be the largest fund-raising event we have ever held as a club. However, it also far and away required the most club volunteer hours of any event we have held. Given the number of volunteer hours invested, it is not clear whether the time spent is worth the funds raised. However, the greater value of this event may be more intangibles. There is likely not a better event to raise the awareness of curling in our community. We paired curling teams with grade school classrooms. The teams visited the classrooms sharing the story of curling and their background. Some of the students also were able to come watch “their team” curl. What a great way to build a farm system for future curlers! The event also proved to be a great opportunity to recruit curlers to UWSP, particularly well timed with their recent College National Championship win. Finally, we were able to build relationships with corporate donors and provide great financial value to our community through the use of hospitality services.
Athletes and spectators gave us overwhelmingly positive reviews, with a fair number letting us know this was the best event of its kind they have experienced. Certainly, our gorgeous facility contributed to that, but the execution of the event also went extremely well with many nice touches that were appreciated.
A special thanks to our core planning team of Gale Bernhagen, Kris Henning, Sandra Kawleski, Lori Kawleski, Ryan Kernosky, Erik Nielsen, Chris Viau and Stacy Viau for the many hours spent to plan this event. Also, thanks to Terry Davis, Doug Anderson, Kylie Abel, Jan Coleman, Matt Davis, Jack Edgerton, and Jack Konopacky for taking on major roles for the event.
And, again to each member who stepped up to make this happen. We could never pull something like this off without the unmatched volunteer support of our members!
Steve Wykle
Event Chairman
|
