www.usacurl.org * Twitter: @terry_usacurl & @2014CurlingNats Wednesday, March 4 Volume 1, Issue 4

The Daily Pebble

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Men’s Standings:

Craig Brown 4-2

Brady Clark 4-2

Tyler George 4-2

Heath McCormick 4-2

Pete Fenson 3-3

John Shuster 3-3

Peter Stolt 3-3

Alex Leichter 2-4

Eric Fenson 2-4

Paul Pustovar 1-5

Women’s Standings:

Allison Pottinger 6-1

Nina Spatola 6-1

Alex Carlson 5-2

Cassie Potter 5-2

Courtney George 4-3

Caitlin Maroldo 3-4

Gabrielle Coleman 3-4

Sarah Anderson 2-5

Abigayle Lindgren 1-6

Amy Lou Anderson 0-7

Wednesday’s Schedule:

8 a.m. Men’s Draw 7

12 p.m. Women’s Draw 8

4 p.m. Men’s Draw 8

8 p.m. Women’s Draw 9

Months of hard work pays off for LOC; Nationals a success

Weather Report

Philadelphia Weather Forecast by

Meteorologist George E. Groundhog:

Wednesday: 41, partly

cloudy

Thursday: 38, cloudy

Friday: 43, cloudy

Saturday: 50, cloudy

Results:

8 am.

E. Fenson 7, P. Fenson 6

Shuster 9, Leichter 1

Brown 10, Stolt 4

McCormick 8, George 4

Clark 6, Pustovar 4

12 p.m.

Coleman 9, A. Anderson 4

Potter 6, Spatola 4

George 7, Carlson 5

Pottinger 8, Lindgren 5

Maroldo 9, S. Anderson 8

4 p.m.

Brown 8, Pustovar 7

McCormick 8, Stolt 2

George 5, P. Fenson 2

Clark 7, Leichter 6 (extra end)

E. Fenson 12, Shuster 6

8 p.m.

George 7, A. Anderson 3

Potter 9, Lindgren 2

Spatola 9, S. Anderson 2

Carlson 6, Pottinger 5

Maroldo 6, Coleman 5 (extra end)

Men’s Stats leaders (Top 3):

Skip (team name):

Craig Brown (Brown), 83.2%

Tyler George (George), 81.5%

Brady Clark (Clark), 81.1%

Vice skip:

Shawn Rojeski (P. Fenson), 85.9%

Chris Plys (McCormick), 85.4%

Kroy Nernberger (Brown), 84.4%

Second:

Joe Polo (P. Fenson), 88.6%

Jared Zezel (Shuster), 86%

Greg Persinger (Clark), 86%

Lead:

Colin Hufman (McCormick), 88.7%

John Landsteiner (Shuster), 86.3%

Mark Haluptzok (E. Fenson), 86%

By Sanjana Manjunath, Daily Pebble Staff Writer

Working hard every single day since USA Curling announced that IceWorks got the bid, Lisa Shaw, Anthony Lorusso and Lauren Oreskovich of the Ice-Works Local Organizing Committee (LOC) have made this year’s USA Curling National Champion-ships a success. The bid was announced last sum-mer and the team got to work immediately.

Organizing the event and putting in the bid was a lot of paper and according to Anthony Lorusso, it took a month and a half to complete filling out 73 pages of paperwork for the bid. As soon as they heard that the Nationals will be held at IceWorks for the second time (the first being in 2012), the group started off by designing the logo for the event.

Once the red, white and blue curling logo was complete, Advertising and Marketing Director Lisa Shaw began contacting companies that would be interested in sponsoring the 2014 USA Curling Na-tionals. Gathering sponsors since a year and a half ago until as recent as two weeks before the event, they had managed to gather “37 sponsors ranging from diamond to silver,” said Shaw.

Sponsors were welcome as late as two weeks before the event started because the facility wanted to make sure they had got all major sponsors before they printed the in-ice logos. When asked how long it took to attain a sponsor, Shaw responded by saying that it really depends on the size and interest of the companies. “Smaller companies could have one meeting and then they are signing on the dotted line, but some of the bigger companies take longer to put all the pieces together,” she said.

Labatt Beer, the presenting sponsor, took six months to secure. Shaw claimed it was “meeting and meeting, presentation after presentation to get them to sign on the dotted line.” In the end, however, the effort most definitely paid off, as the value of the sponsorship was high — and they were also very involved.

In the end, the LOC, the sponsors and the sup-porting staff at IceWorks made the 2014 USA Curl-ing Nationals a huge success so far with their night-time and weekend games exceeding their expected sales. The event is almost sold out for finals and the venue might be a bidding contender for the 2017 USA Curling Nationals.

Tweet of the Day

Need more curling in your life?

W ant to watch more curling after the 2014 USA Curl-

ing National Championships conclude? In yester-

day’s edition we previewed the upcoming men’s and

women’s world championship. But there are several key U.S.

national events still on the calendar.

The 2014 USA Curling Mixed National Championship will take

place March 15-22 in Wisconsin Rapids, Wis., and the 2014 Na-

tional College Championship will take place March 13-16 in

Blaine, Minn., at the Four Seasons Curling Club. Feeling more

adventurous? Head to curling’s homeland and take in the 2014

World Senior and World Mixed Doubles Championships April 22-

29 in Dumfries, Scotland.

This summer the second USA Curling Arena Curling Champion-

ships will be staged in Lansing, Mich., June 12-15.

Photo collage by John Simons

Top (l-r) Team Carlson’s Sherri Schummer, Jamie Sinclair & Emilia

Juocys; (middle) Paul Pustovar; and Rebecca Andrew (bottom)

Quiz Corner

Where will the 2018 Olympic Winter Games take place?

Give your answer to Kellie Krake or Rick Patzke in the media room.

First person to answer correctly will receive a prize.

Page 2 The Daily Pebble, Volume 1, Issue 4 Page 3 The Daily Pebble, Volume 1, Issue 4

Daily Pebble: Terry Kolesar, Editor

Jeff Albertini,

Photography

Editorial assistants:

Matthew Manzi,

Sanjana Manjunath,

Kellie Krake

Rick Patzke & Amelia

Young, Assistant

Editors

The Daily Pebble can be

found online as well: www.usacurl.org

Ideas? Send an e-mail to

Terry Kolesar at terry.kolesar@usacurl.org Want more curling merchandise? Visit shop.curlingrocks.net

Photo gallery (clockwse):

Top, left, Colin Hufman (Team McCormick); Team

Stolt’s Clayton Orvik and Brad Caldwell; Sarah

Anderson (Team S. Anderson); and Team Ander-

son’s Emily Anderson (left) and Courtney Slata.

Four men’s teams tied for first place By Terry L. Kolesar, Editor

A s the flu continues to ravage the women’s field at the 2014 USA Curling National Championships presented by Labatt, Allison Pottinger and Nina Spatola have their teams in a tie for first place.

Several teams have been playing short-handed as a stomach bug ham-pers the competition at IceWorks Arena. However, that hasn’t stopped Pottinger and teammates Nicole Joraanstad (Monona, Wis.), Natalie Nicholson (Bemidji, Minn.), and Tabitha Peterson (Eagan, Minn.) as they slid past Abigayle Lindgren’s North Dakota junior team, 8-5, to keep their perfect record intact. However, in the night cap, Alex Carlson’s team defeated Pottinger, 6-5.

The Spatola rink had to play without their skip in the morning draw and lost their first game of the competition as Cassie Potter’s team won, 6-4. Spatola (McFarland, Wis.) and teammates Becca Hamilton (McFarland, Wis.), Tara Peterson (Eagan, Minn.), and Sophie Brorson (St. Paul, Minn.) are now 6-1, however, after earning a 9-2 victory over Sarah Anderson (2-5).

Courtney George’s team improved to 3-3 with a 7-5 win over Carlson’s rink in the morning. Aileen Sormunen (Duluth, Minn.), Amanda McLean (St. Paul, Minn.), and Monica Walker (Brighton, Mass.) also had to play without their skip for both games on Tuesday but were victorious twice as they swept past Amy Lou Anderson, 9-3, in the evening session.

Gabrielle Coleman, who missed two games earlier in the week due to the flu, led her team to its third win as well. Coleman and teammates Elle LeBeau (Lynnwood, Wash.), Maureen Stolt (Plymouth, Minn.), and Cynthia Eng-Dinsel (Kirkland, Wash.) defeated Amy Lou Anderson’s rink, 9-4. Caitlin Maroldo’s rink captured a second win as they swept past Sarah Anderson, 9-8. Anderson’s rink gave up a steal of three points in the ninth end that put Maroldo’s rink in the driver’s seat for the win. Maroldo then defeated Coleman, 4-3, in an extra end later in the day to improve to 3-4.

In the men’s afternoon session, 2012 national champion Heath McCor-mick (Sarnia, Ontario) led his team to a lopsided 8-2 win over Peter Stolt’s rink to improve to 4-2.

Craig Brown’s team also moved up to 4-2 in the standings with an 8-7 victory over Paul Pustovar (1-5). Brown (Madison, Wis.) and team-mates Kroy Nernberger (Madison, Wis.), Matt Hamilton (McFarland, Wis.), and Jon Brunt (Portage, Wis.) scored two points in the final end to earn the team’s fourth victory.

“We’ve played pretty well all week except for our first game. The second game we lost we played well but Brady Clark just played really well. It’s tough to beat a hot skip,” Nernberger said. “We played well this game, too. This was our first 10-end game and it’s nice to finish out a game with pressure on, not being up by a lot or down by a lot. Having the pressure on is good for later in the week.”

The Brown rink is averaging just over eight points per game this week.

“We’ve had good rock placement as far as hit and rolls,” Nernberger said about the team’s ability to pour on the offense. “The ends that we’ve scored big we’ve made hit and rolls while the other teams tried drawing. Even this game we had a couple of big ends and chances for

big ends in the second half but just didn’t make the doubles when we needed to.”

Eric Fenson’s rink earned its second win of the day as they used a big sixth end to defeat John Shuster’s team. Fenson and teammates Josh Bahr, Jon Chandler, Mark Haluptzok, and Riley Fenson (all of Bemidji, Minn.) converted a takeout to score six points that led to a 12-6 vic-tory over the 2014 Olympic team.

Brady Clark moved his team to 4-2 to keep pace at the top of the standings as they defeated Alex Leichter’s rink, 7-6. Clark drew into the four-foot for the win in an extra end.

After the conclusion of the round robin on Thursday morning, the top four teams will be ranked and advance to the Page playoffs. The women’s playoffs start at 8 p.m. Thursday with the men’s playoffs being staged at 12 p.m. Friday. The Page 1-2 game will advance the winner to Saturday’s final with the losing side playing the winner of the Page 3-4 match in the single semifinal on Friday.

The women’s semifinal is set for 4 p.m. Friday followed by the men’s semifinal game at 8 p.m. Both gold-medal games will be contested on Saturday with the ladies taking the ice at 10 a.m., followed by the men at 3 p.m.

Team Brown’s Matt Hamilton delivers a stone during round robin competi-

tion Tuesday at IceWorks. Brothers Eric Fenson (below, left) and Pete

Fenson met in the men’s draw on Tuesday afternoon.