2024-2025 5-and-Under Qualifiers Preview and Review
How do we make something really good even better?
Dedicated ice curling clubs are turning on their ice plants. Arena curlers are having their playdowns for arena nationals. The folks at Rock Creek Curling are getting ready to host the Everest North American Curling Club Championships September 17-18. And USA Curling announced the list of 5-and-Under National Championship qualifiers for the 2024-25 season. All of this means the curling season is HERE!
On August 22nd, USA Curling announced which 23 qualifying events were selected from 31 host applications. The national championship will be held at St. Paul Curling Club, and they’ll be able to have a team claim that 24th spot.
Last year, I stopped by SPCC the evening before championship group play began at Chaska, and the warm welcome of random strangers was incredible. Before I knew it, the ice crew was buying drinks for my group and giving us a gift of a book with the history of St. Paul Curling Club. I’m looking forward to seeing the 5-and-Under National Championship back at a club steeped in the history of the game here in the US.
I find it interesting that the championship has alternated between newer and historic sites over the last 4 years:
2022: Southern California Curling Center (new), pour one out for our friends in California
2023: Hibbing (historic)
2024: Chaska (new)
2025: St. Paul (historic)
I’d love to see the championship find some new geographic regions, but as the largest national championship by number of competitors, there are limited facilities across the country that can play host to the event.
As is becoming tradition, there were some opinions shared regarding the geographic dispersal of the qualifiers. The Grand National Curling Club (GNCC) is hosting 6 qualifiers this season, followed by Wisconsin with 5. Minnesota is hosting 3 qualifier events, not including the host slot for St. Paul. MoPac, Great Lakes, and the Pacific Northwest (PNWCA) are each hosting 2 qualifiers (Curl Vegas is a GNCC club, but they are hosting the MoPac 5U so I’ve included them here). Dakota, Alaska, and Mid-America (MACA) are each hosting one.
The Midwest Curling Association is not hosting a qualifier this year. I expect the Windy City 5U Cashspiel would have once again been a qualifier in 24-25, but their building was flooded last spring. You can support them in their recovery efforts here.
Growing Pains
It’s important to not lose sight of the fact that the 5-and-Under National Championship is an unquestionable success story of the growth of curling in the United States. The 23-24 season saw over 650 total team entries in national qualifying events across the country. On one weekend in January, there were over 120 different teams all competing across five different 5-and-Under bonspiels in the country (three of these were not national qualifying events).
That’s not to say this event is perfect. The selection process for hosts, the host events, and the national championship itself have all been criticized. A lot of the questions, challenges, and frustrations with this event seem to come down to one big issue: we can’t agree what we want this championship to be. Should the 5-and-Under National Championship be representative of the top 5U curlers and teams in the country? Or should the championship have a greater focus on showcasing the top teams from the various regions? Right now, it’s a mix of the two which means the event tends to showcase a higher ceiling and a lower floor. If I could wave my magic curling broom, I’d have this be a focus on the top teams with no regional affiliations.
I’d argue the two biggest issues that need to be addressed in 5U are region-locked/limited events and small bonspiels.
Region-Locked & Region-Limited Events
I’m defining a region-locked or region-limited event as one that either prevents curlers from outside the region from competing in the bonspiel, limits the number of teams competing from outside the region, or has a format that is based on regional affiliation. Some of the largest and smallest regions both utilize region-locked or region-limited qualifiers.
For the 2024-2025 season, there are 5 events with regional limitations:
MoPac 5&Under - last year’s event had 24 teams and 2 non-regional teams. The event has spaces reserved first for regional teams with non-regional teams able to join a waitlist for unclaimed spots.
Dakota Territory 5U - last year’s event had 10 Dakota teams and 10 non-regional teams. The event has Dakota teams play each other, and the non-regional teams play each other. The winner of the Dakota teams plays vs the non-regional winner in the final with the final winner receiving the qualification slot.
PNWCA 5-and-Under Championship - Held at the 5-sheet Granite Curling Club in Seattle, last year’s event took 12 teams. All spots were reserved for PNWCA regional teams. 2 unclaimed regional spots went to non-regional teams. This year’s field has expanded to 16 teams. There is a 2-week registration period for PNWCA teams, after the 2-week registration period, all unclaimed registration slots will go to non-regional teams.
Raymond Kayser Memorial - this is a GNCC-only mixed-format bonspiel. No teams from outside the GNCC are allowed. The Kayser was not a qualifying event in either of the past 2 years.
Elisabeth Childs Challenge - The Childs Challenge is a women’s bonspiel limited to GNCC teams only. Last year’s event had 32 teams.
It’s wonderful for teams in these regions to have [usually] close-to-home events which are serving as qualifiers for the national championship. In this scenario, teams tend to have an advantage in getting themselves qualified for nationals as they don’t have to compete with teams outside of their region. That’s not to say these regions don’t contain good teams, but because these events limit who can join, the total talent pool might not be as deep.
Based on the information I was able to find from the past two seasons, teams qualified for the 5U national championship through these region-locked/limited events have a combined 19-41 record in group play. Only one of those 12 teams qualified for the quarterfinals, and they lost their first game in the playoffs.
On the flip side, teams who qualified at a non-locked/limited event in their region went a combined 79-61 in group play. All four semifinalists from each of the past two seasons qualified at an event in their own region which was open to teams from anywhere in the country.
Small Qualifying Events
Qualifying bonspiels with a low number of registrants (less than 24) are the other main contributing factor. Now, it’s important to keep in mind some of these events have very few registrations because they’re region-locked/limited, but qualifying events with low entrant limit present a similar challenge.
As with region-locked/limited teams, capping the number of entrants at a lower number is going to prevent some interested teams, some of whom could challenge for the A event championship, from being able to enter the bonspiel altogether. Beyond limiting the potential for top teams to come to the event, these events are also limiting the potential for community building that can happen at these events.
I should note that some clubs may have fewer entries simply due to being a smaller club with not as much ice. Logistically, there are only so many teams you can accommodate at your club. Even so, teams from smaller qualifying events (≤ 20 teams) have seen teams from their events go 33-47 in group play over the last 2 years at nationals. Teams from events with 24 or more entries have gone 85-65 in group play.
As with region-locked/limited events, you’re more likely to run into a higher number of good teams if there are more teams in the event. Better competition at qualifying events should prepare teams for the better competition at the national championship.
I do want to note one of the smallest qualifying events last year was held at Fairbanks Curling Club, and their originally posted team limit was 24. This was not reached due to the travel time and costs it takes to get to Fairbanks. In lieu of a smaller field, the organizers treated this event as a competitive qualifier with all games being run exactly as they would at the national championship (games were timed, officiated, hammer was determined by last shot draw at the end of each pre-game practice). For an event that was smaller, they made sure they did their part to prepare their qualifier for nationals (also, the freshly made danishes available in the mornings were insane).
Let’s open it up!
Disclaimer: 5U and qualifiers are still very much an imperfect system. I recognize there will be issues and challenges with basically every alternative.
In an ideal world, I would prefer to see qualifiers move completely away from region-locking or region-limits and emphasize bonspiel hosts with a cap of at least 24 teams. The 5-and-Under National Championship is pretty unique in that it is an open event, and teams can be made up of curlers from anywhere in the country coming together, provided they’ve won a qualifier.
One of my favorite things about competing at qualifier events was getting to play curlers from around the country. In the 23-24 season alone, I played against curlers representing 22 different curling clubs in the US. I made huge strides in expanding my pin collection, and getting to meet, broomstack, and curl with people from around the country was a big highlight of my season. The more region-limited and smaller events we have, the less mingling and community-building we will see in the 5U demographic.
Some teams have no choice but to travel far and wide in their attempts to qualify. Removing region-limited qualifiers and increasing team entry caps increases the options for those teams to compete. You never know, maybe your opponent from the other side of the country becomes a teammate at a future bonspiel.
If we’re going to continue to have region-locked/limited events as well as those with a low team cap, then at minimum, a more equitable solution for all regions needs to be offered. At that point, I believe 5U begins losing some of its charm that differentiates it from the other USA Curling national championships.
The Big Picture
Ultimately, this all comes down to what type of an event we want the 5-and-Under National Championship to be. Do we want the best and only the best teams to be there with the highest competition level? Then a fully open slate of qualifiers is the best way forward. Do we want a somewhat equitable opportunity for representation at the championship instead? Then some type of geographic limitation is necessary, but it needs to have some protections for all regions.
No matter what, I think it’s also important to recognize the huge success that is the 5-and-Under National Championship and emphasis on 5-and-Under curling in the United States. This is the largest USA Curling national championship by number of competitors, and many of the qualifiers fill up almost immediately. The 5U format carries plenty of drama with it, but that’s primarily because it’s an unquestionable success story of the growth of curling in the United States.
I can’t wait to watch 5-and-Under curling across the country this coming season. At least 13 of the qualifiers should be streamed in some capacity, and I can guarantee I’ll be watching when the Coyotes 5U Superhero Bonspiel kicks off in Tempe in mid-October.