After winning a national championship in its first season last year, Bowdoin’s club curling team is looking to repeat its early success. More than halfway done with its season, which ends in April, the team has its sole home competition this weekend.

Individually, the athletes have been practicing regularly, traveling an hour and a half to Belfast, Maine, every Sunday for ice time. Due to the long commute, the players curl individually whenever they have time. Some curl midweek in leagues, while others practice over school breaks against other programs, such as Harvard, Boston University, Colgate, and MIT.

The team is looking forward to its two biggest events of the season: the Maine Collegiate Championships and Easterns. Last year, the Polar Bears took first in the former bonspiel—the name for curling competitions—and are looking to repeat this weekend.

Despite the squad’s excitement about the upcoming events, there are some noteworthy changes to this year’s curling calendar. Instead of Nationals, the divisions will be split up into Eastern, Midwest and Central. Most curling events include D-I, D-II and D-III competitors, with both undergraduate and graduate competitors. Curling is unique because teams may be comprised of curlers from different schools, so players from MIT, Harvard, Bowdoin, and Unity College get to know one another and spend time together.

There is a lot more to curling than may meet the eye, according to captain Carl Spielvogel ’13.

For one, it’s all about stance. Curlers spend a significant portion of their time balancing on one foot as they brush the ice, in order for the stone to travel down the surface. Spielvogel said that loose clothing allows for optimal movement. In addition, players must memorize where on the ice the stone will curl the most depending on its weight, and how to use the ice to their advantage.

Spielvogel said he enjoys curling because “it is all centered around sportsmanship.” Before the match, players shake the hands of all their teammates and their opponents and say, “Good curling.”

The biggest challenge thus far has been an interest in curling, as the team currently consists of fewer than a dozen participants. There are several events that the team could have competed in, but the team has found it difficult to attend due to travel and expenses.

Originally posted on http://bowdoinorient.com/article/7080 with photos

Bowdoin’s curling team, which came together only months ago, clinched the national title for its division Sunday, March 13, at the 2011 National College Curling Championships in Chicago.

An injury left the team a member short. “With only one person brushing, it meant we had to be much more accurate for every one of our shots,” says team founder Carl Spielvogel ’13.

“St. Scholastica (3rd place) and Tennessee (2nd place) were the most intense and skilled teams we’ve ever come across. It was a thrill to play with them, and we can’t wait for next year to play with them again.”

View a photo gallery on the Bowdoin Daily Sun.

March 8, 2011

Having swept up not only the state championship, but a third-place finish in the Boston Collegiate Tournament as well, Bowdoin’s new curling team will be among 32 teams competing in the National College Curling Championships March 11-13in Chicago.

(L. to r.) Carl Spielvogel ’13, Evan Boucher ’11, Margot Haines ’13, Jay Tulchin ’13, Andrew Hancock ’13, Molly Krueger ’13, Brian Jacobel ’14 at the Belfast Curling Club.

Team founder Carl Spielvogel ’13 says the team got one last chance to “throw some stones” at the curling facility in Belfast over the weekend and will leave Thursday for the event.

Bowdoin’s curling team won the college state championship over the weekend, and now, with a 6 and 1 record, has its sights set on College Nationals, to be held in two weeks in Chicago.

This quirky and arcane Olympic sport has gained traction at Bowdoin over the winter. Each week, the team’s devoted students have packed their brooms and traveled an hour and a half to practice and compete. No stranger to the thrill of competition, Emily Neilson ’11, goaltender for Bowdoin’s three-time NCAA champion field hockey team, provides a closer look at Bowdoin’s curling team.

Several students from have found a new way to spice up the Maine winter — by joining Bowdoin’s new curling team. Every Sunday afternoon, a van takes them the more than 70 miles to Belfast to train at the only curling facility in Maine.

Bowdoin’s curling team (l. to r.): Andrew Hancock ’13, Brian Jacobel ’14, Margot Haines ’13, Matt Spring ’13, Carl Spielvogel ’13.

It was sophomore Carl Spielvogel’s idea.

“I had never done it before,” he says. “Watching the Olympics last year with friends I thought, you know what, we should start a curling team.”

Spielvogel called Douglas Coffin at the curling facility to discuss forming a collegiate curling league, prompting Coffin’s immediate offer to coach the Bowdoin team. Following Bowdoin’s lead, Colby and Unity College have also formed teams that practice and play on Sundays in Belfast.

Coffin hopes curling fever spreads further across Maine. “I would like, in time, for there to be a league among University of Maine-Orono, Husson, Unity, Colby, Bates, Bowdoin, College of the Atlantic and Maine Maritime Academy,” says Coffin. “That’s going to take some time, but this is a real start.”

Each Sunday, the Bowdoin team spends as much time studying strategy as they do playing. Spielvogel says the challenge is maintaining the necessary mental focus and balance for the precision involved.

“It is so complex that if even a hair falls into a stone’s trajectory, its path will change,” says Spielvogel.

Brushing the ice in front of the stone controls how much or how little a stone’s trajectory will “curl” around the blocker stones, hence the sport’s moniker.

In late February, Bowdoin is poised to send at least one curling squad to the Boston Collegiate Curling Tournament to compete against Harvard, Boston University, MIT and Hamilton. Four members of the curling team will head to Chicago in March to represent Bowdoin at the National Collegiate Curling Championship. Spielvogel will be on that team along with Margot Haines ’13, Andrew Hancock ’13 and Jay Tulchin ’13.

Spielvogel says many people are surprised to learn a Bowdoin curling team even exists. “Mostly they say, ‘We have curling here?’ I think people find it’s cool when I explain it.”

The team welcomes those interested to give it a try. There is no cost, and the team will provide the equipment as well as beginner lessons.

“We’d love to teach people of any age and sports experience how to curl,” says Spielvogel. “All you need is a jacket, some warm clothes and we’ll all hang out on the ice.”

Originally posted in Bowdoin News: http://bowdoin.edu/news/archives/1bowdoincampus/008217.shtml