2025 Club Nationals Recap
Wisconsin, GNCC, and Dakota regions own the podium in Milwaukee
I don’t know if it’s possible for a national championship to disappoint, and the 2025 Club Curling National Championships in Milwaukee certainly did not break from tradition. Curling fans were treated to spectacular shot-making, dominant performances, ties upon ties upon ties, and down-to-the-wire finishes.
Even though this year will not see champions move onto a showdown with Canada (more on this later), we got to see the class of club curling in the United States descend on Milwaukee.
The same three regions were represented on the podium for both events, and we had many familiar faces return to the podium, along with some new ones. While the focus here is on the finalists, congratulations to all teams on a fantastic week of curling, and a big thank you to Milwaukee Curling Club for streaming the event on their Twitch channels so folks from around the country could tune in.
Women’s Championship
Winners
Gold: Team Schroeder - Madison Curling Club (Wisconsin)
Silver: Team Podoll - Fargo-Moorhead Curling Club (Dakota)
Bronze: Team Bera - Potomac Curling Club (Grand National)
For Team Schroeder and Team Podoll, reaching the final was anything but a forgone conclusion. At the end of round robin play, both teams found themselves in a 4-way tie for first place in their respective pools (with only 3 teams making playoffs).
However, each team ended up with the top seed out of their pool due to their standings in the tiebreaker scenarios and got the all-important bye to Sunday morning’s semifinals. With wins in their respective semifinal matches, a rematch of the 2024 Club Championship was set!
The final was intense and well worth the price of admission. (Milwaukee Curling Club’s Twitch VODs expire after a week, so I’d highly recommend watching the game this week if you weren’t able to watch!)
Team Podoll (Ann Podoll, Rachel Workin, Rachel Kawleski, MacKenzie Ritchie, Carissa Thomas) got off to a good start, stealing in the first and forcing Schroeder to one in the second. In the third end, even though Ann Podoll wasn’t able to get her draw fully buried on her first skip stone, it did force Schroeder into playing a very precise downweight hit. Sidney Schroeder, though, made it nearly perfectly, getting a slight roll under the center guard to sit two. Podoll’s draw was a hair heavy, and Schroeder led 2-1 after three.
The Fargo-Moorhead rink came back to score two with hammer on a nice draw to the 4-foot from the skipper, and the team from Madison (Sidney Schroeder, Joanna Seboth, Celeste Taylor Marlow, Lois Buckingham, Toni Paisley) punched right back with a score of two to take the lead going into the 6th end.
And the 6th end was a wild one.
After Team Schroeder put up a corner guard, the two teams combined to throw 7 straight draws ending up behind the tee line. By the time we got to skip’s first rocks, Sidney Schroeder was looking at a straight line of Podoll’s red rocks sitting at least 3.
Sidney’s draw on the unplayed side of the sheet came up about a foot light, and Podoll added another rock to the straight line for good measure. Schroeder called a draw on the side of the sheet where all rocks had been thrown in the end and ended up heavy, giving us all 16 rocks in play and a score of 4 for the curlers from Dakota after Podoll’s last rock.
Down 3 going into the 7th end, Team Schroeder did not give up. The skipper put up a corner guard and forced play under the corner throughout the end, and Ann Podoll kept clearing everything out. Going into skip’s first shot with hammer, Sidney Schroeder’s front end was able to just carry her rock far enough to sit shot rock. Podoll was unable to make the chase on shot rock, and Schroeder’s last rock just hit the brakes enough to sit two and go into the 8th end down 1.
In the 8th, each team did what one would expect to start: Team Schroeder put up guards, and Team Podoll threw draws into the house before beginning to peel. When Madison vice Joanna Seboth’s guard had a little too much steam, Team Schroeder was able to audible and get the rock to sit shot leaving Ann Podoll with a conundrum: peel the guard or play the short angle-run to clean up the 4-foot?
Podoll decided to play the angle run, and when the rock flashed wide, Schroeder tightened the screws by putting up another guard. When it came down to the last rock, Ann Podoll needed to make an out-turn tap to move the Madison shot rock out of the 4-foot. The shot was close, and the Piggly Wiggly house did not make it any easier to decide who was sitting shot. After a measure, the point was awarded to Team Schroeder, and off to an extra end the game went.
The 9th end brought even more drama and elevated heart rates. With center guards up, and a fantastic draw from Celeste Taylor Marlow, Team Schroeder once again had the pressure on and was guarding for their lives. Team Podoll was left with high difficulty shots and just couldn’t find themselves on the right side of the inch. The Madison curlers stole their second straight end to claim their second consecutive National Championship. Congratulations to both teams on great weeks and on a crazy final.
In the 3rd place matchup, Team Bera of Potomac Curling Club took on Team Stolt of St. Paul Curling Club. As with the championship game, it was a back-and-forth rollercoaster, with the lead changing hands almost every end. After exchanging multiples for four consecutive ends, Bera was not able to successfully make her blank attempt in the 7th, instead getting forced to one point to take a one-point lead without hammer into the last end. Team Bera got their money’s worth out of their guards and were able to steal in the last end to take home the bronze.
Men’s Championship
Winners
Gold: Team Leichter - Broomstones Curling Club (Grand National)
Silver: Team Berg - Fargo-Moorhead Curling Club (Dakota)
Bronze: Team Nelson - Madison Curling Club (Wisconsin)
I’ll cut right to it: this was a dominant performance by Team Leichter of Broomstones Curling Club. In their first end of the entire event, Team Leichter (Alex Leichter, Ryan Hallisey, Jared Wydysh, Ben Clark) hung a 4-ender and would go on to win by four points. This would be their closest final score of the entire week.
After making it through round robin undefeated, they were the epitome of hammer efficiency in the semifinal against Team Bond, scoring 4 in the first, 4 in the second, and 3 in the fifth to earn their spot in the final.
Their finals opponent, Team Berg, was also in Pool A. Their only loss came to Team Leichter in pool play. The team from Fargo-Moorhead (Ryan Berg, Tim Hodek, Josh Moore, Randy Askew, and Ethan Sampson) rebounded nicely by winning their final pool play game. They went on to win their quarterfinal and semifinal games by a combined score of 14-5 to guarantee themselves a medal for the second straight year.
In the final, Alex Leichter took on a double with the top rock being partially buried. It looked like Jared Wydysh was going to be able to hold the line, but the rock just barely wicked the guard to earn a steal of one point for Team Berg. Unfortunately for the Dakota rink, this is the only real miss they’d see from Leichter.
In the second end, Leichter packed the 4-foot and then made a hit through a very narrow port on his first shot to be sitting 4 going into last rocks, with a fifth rock barely being outcounted by a Dakota stone. Berg was basically forced to play a runback of one of his rocks into the pile for damage control. Unfortunately, his rock overcurled and took out his own lone rock, and Leichter made a draw to the 8-foot to score six.
All 4 players of Team Leichter continued to play lights out, and after a steal of two in the 5th end to go up 9-2, Berg conceded. I’m not sure what other superlatives to throw out there for the Broomstones rink. They were truly dominant all week and deserving of the National Championship!
In the bronze medal game, Team Nelson (Madison Curling Club) and Team Bond (Granite Curling Club of Seattle) had an incredibly tight battle. The play was generally pretty open with relatively few guards all game, and the two teams traded forces for the first 6 ends. After a steal of 1 in the penultimate end by Bond, Nelson threw a corner guard with hammer for the first time in the entire game. As a result, play got drawn under that corner guard, and he was able to make a nice hit and stick to score two to win the game.
Notable Notes
Family Success
There were a lot of family connections at club nationals this week, but the most successful of those connections is undoubtedly Lois and Will Buckingham. Not only did Lois win her second championship in as many years at lead for Team Schroeder, but her father, Will, won bronze with Team Nelson! Will’s game was able to end in time to be able to catch the extra end of Lois’ championship match, so he really got the best of both worlds in the final draw.
Premium Photography
Resources for any event, unless it’s a high-performance championship, often are slim, and we don’t get to see a ton of high-quality action photos from the other championships. I wanted to take a moment to shout out Jeremy Whitman of Whitman Photography for the huge number of hours he put into photographing the event. Jeremy has been great for me to work with if I’ve ever needed photos for articles, and he did a fantastic job documenting the event and highlighting the top club curlers in the country.
Check out his gallery of club nationals is available on his website!
New Website for USA Championship Scores
We’ve already seen a few national championships use USA Curling’s new officiating website, and it’s been a really nice development to follow championships so far in 2025. While the championships scores are still getting posted on CurlingZone, I’ve had a very positive experience as a user tracking scores, standings, and tiebreakers (such as DSC) in the public-facing dashboard. You can find all results, including DSC numbers, from club championships on the 2025 event page.
No Everest Club Event in 2025
I had alluded to this in a prior newsletter, but Everest Curling will not be providing a second North American Curling Club Championship (ENACCC) showdown with Canada, even after a successful debut in 2024. I had hoped and speculated their announcement with World Curling would result in an expanded version of the live broadcast event we saw from Rock Creek last year, but it sounds like it’s likely to mean a sponsorship of an event such as World Seniors or World Mixed Fours instead.
USA Curling released their official announcement just before Club Nationals kicked off, and a common comment was, “Why don’t they and Curling Canada just find a new sponsor?”
It’s important to note, none of USA Curling, Curling Canada, or World Curling were involved with the concept of the international club event; it was all Everest Curling. Everest essentially did all of the funding, logistics, broadcasting and marketing, you name it. The event was Everest’s through and through, so asking USCA or Curling Canada to take over is asking them to pick up the pieces of something they do not have the capacity or resources to manage.
Hopefully we see something come back in the future through another sponsor!
Focus Shifting to 5U!
Even though the season is officially starting to wind down, there is a busy month of newsletters ahead. The final 5-and-Under qualifier is coming up this weekend in Alabama. Sometime next week, you can expect to see another newsletter talking about the final qualifier events as well as some arena nationals playdowns that have already taken place!
Thank you for reading, and as always, good curling!