Denver Curling Newsletter

May 2017

Colorado Wins President’s Cup ! Two states, two curling clubs, 16 games, and the race to reach 13 points first. Competition was very close all weekend. It came down to the last game, down to the last end.

UP COMING EV ENTS DCC closed until September Weeding and Grounds Maintenance June 3rd 8:30-11:00 a.m. + events throughout the summer 2017-18 League Registration Opens in August

INSIDE STORY Election Results: Board of Directors League Champions End of Season Bonspiel

President’s Cup Volunteer Awards Photo Gallery

The President’s Cup is an annual challenge between Denver Curling Club and Coyotes Curling Club. The clubs alternate hosting the event. Denver had home ice advantage in this year’s 2nd Annual President’s Cup, so the pressure was on. See page 3 for details.

Volunteer of the Month April: Jason Sethi Ice Crew coordinator. Often found scraping the ice to get it ready for the next event. Also helped with 5 & Under draw schedule. May: John Cherrey Our Treasurer spends countless hours with the books, handling all finances, taxes, and bills

May 2017

ROCKTALK From the President In the last newsletter, I focused on volunteers and how much is accomplished with those that give extra effort and time toward our success. May is a great month to say thank you, reflect on the year’s highlights and celebrate. Twenty of our all star volunteers played in the 2nd annual President’s Cup May 12-14. This event is a annual curling challenge between Denver and the Arizona Coyotes Curling Club akin to the Continental Cup of Curling. The goal is to strengthen bonds between our two clubs, celebrate our successes and to recognize our respective volunteers. It came down to the last day and some amazing individual and team efforts to pull out the win over the Coyotes this year. Excellent event and fantastic team effort Denver Curlers! Denver will maintain the cup until May next year when we will travel to Tempe AZ to defend it. The General Annual meeting was held May 19 at the curling center. It featured a year in review presentation, a chance for members to ask questions, introduction of new board members, appreciation to outgoing board members and presentation of our volunteer awards. Overall it was a very nice evening and perfect ending to another successful season. One member emailed me recently and said I hope you have a nice few months off before next season. I appreciated the thought, but in reality the Board Members have lots of planning and decisions to make over the summer. The first order is to elect officers on June 9 and divide the workload for the upcoming season among the board members. A successful season requires many hours of planning, budgeting, and ensuring that we have taken care of all aspects of running a business. In addition, we always have some summer projects like mowing the grass, sealing the parking lot, taking inventory, and cleaning that keeps us busy. The goal is to open league registration starting August 1 and there are many things that need to happen behind the scenes to be ready. We are in the early stages of trying to get a pickleball league up and running in the Curling Center during the summer. Watch for announcements.

Volunteer Awards Volunteers are the life blood of many organizations and it is certainly true for Denver Curling. During the 2016-17 season, members logged 3890 hours of volunteer time. And that is only the recorded hours, many hard-worked hours are absent from the online volunteer log. Including corporate events, it is estimated that our volunteers provided over 5000 hours this season. That is more than 600 full-time work days. In recognition of their hard work, Denver Curling honors our volunteers with 4 annual awards. This year’s Sportsmanship Award goes to Aaron Johnson. Brian Brown was recognized with the Most Welcoming to New Members Award. The recipient of the DCC Culture Award was Dave Falco. Finally, congratulations to Tom Whitman, voted the 2016-17 Volunteer of the Year .

2017 Volunteer of the Year Tom Whitman

Yes I will take some time off and enjoy my summer, but like other addicted curlers I will still curl in the summer. I am part of a team that is playing in the Arizona “Hotter than Hell” bonspiel in mid-July. I also know of several members that are planning on travelling to Calgary during the Labor Day weekend to play in the Cross Border Bonspiel. If you need a curling fix over the summer you really should consider a summer bonspiel, as they are always fun. Thank you to each and everyone of you for a great season. Looking forward to seeing you again in September. Phil Moir President, Denver Curling

Most Welcoming to New Members Brian Brown

May 2017

ROCKTALK President’s Cup The Colorado – Arizona Challenge The President’s Cup was conceived last year as a fun way to have the Arizona Coyotes Curling Club and Denver Curling Club get to know each other better. It was also developed to thank our respective all-star volunteers with a relaxed, but competitive season finale.

Club Presidents kick off event: Jeff Baird and Phil Moir This year 16 Coyotes, and the cup, travelled to Colorado. Denver Curling hosted the 2nd President’s Cup and its team members were highly motivated to ensure the cup would not make its flight back to Arizona. The President’s Cup consists of four draws, each with a feature game. Winners of each game are awarded a point for their club, the feature game earns two. With 25 points at stake, it is a race to 13.

The Arizona team held their lead through the second draw with its 5 & Under feature game, and looked like they would increase their lead when their Women’s Team got off to a quick start. However, the Colorado Women rallied and came back to tie Saturday afternoon’s feature game.

Going into the final day, the score stood at Coyotes 8 - Denver Curling 7. With the cup on the line, points were doubled in this final round. Denver took an early lead in several games, but Arizona kept coming back. Darryl Sobering lead the Colorado Men to a feature game victory, closing the gap. Three games still had to finish, and the race for the cup was very much alive. It came down to the last game, the last end, all eyes on the skip rocks. The Denver Curling rink pulled out a second win of the day, enough to tip the leader board. Colorado 13 - Arizona 12.

The first draw was close, with Denver and Arizona winning 2 games each, but the Coyotes gained an early lead from their win in the featured Seniors match.

We would like to thank all the Coyotes who came up from Arizona. It was a pleasure to play against you. Denver Curling looks forward to defending its title next year in Tempe AZ.

May 2017

ROCKTALK Championship Night What better way to culminate the season than with a final playoff night of celebration. This year the leagues held a combined showcase night to allow all members and friends to watch our club’s finest teams compete. The first ever Championship Night was held on Saturday April 29th. Eight of our ten regular leagues were invited to play their championship games on this night. The evening was a chance to see the best of Denver Curling Club league play. All in all, 5 league champions were crowned, one B pool champion was crowned and two leagues sent all star teams to play in the event. Thanks to all the teams that participated and to everyone else that came out and made the season a success. The Tuesday Competitive league featured Team Falco (Dave Falco, Quentin Way, Lance Wheeler, Derek Anderson) winning the crown over Team Kizlyk (Darrick Kizlyk, Sean Stevinson, Justin Boshoven, Scott Stevinson). The Thursday Night Rec league championship game had Team Sobering (Darryl Sobering, Renee Sobering, Sienna Wood, Matt Wood) winning a close game over Team Way (Quentin Way, Mike Doherty, Emily Lewis, Melanie Lewis). The Friday Afternoon game was won by Team Brown (Brian Brown, Judy Brown, Diane Austin, Scott Austin) over Team Padgett (Lance Wheeler, Billy Hoffman, Chris Golubieski, Nicholas Anderson). Friday Night’s championship game included a win by team calling themselves The Goon Squad (Dan Andrews, Beau Idler, Jeremy Atcheson, Anders Englund) over Team Scanlon (Michael Scanlon, Scot Schneider, Tim Brock, Megan Connell). Finally, the Saturday Night league crowned its champion, Team Markham (Dean Markham, Cindy Markham, Juliann Brant, Steve Brant) over Team Fish (Barry Fish, Mika Fish, James Swanson, Elena Swanson).

The Sunday Night Women's league and the Monday Night Rec league each sent all star teams and the Wednesday Night Rec league crowned their B pool champion Team Hadsell. (Dave Hadsell, Cheryl Hadsell, Diane Austin, Scott Austin) who defeated Team Pickles (Jeff Pickles, Ryan White, Benjamin Landis, Nick Landis).

Tues Competitive Champs: Team Falco

Friday Night Champs: The Goon Squad

Saturday Night Champs: Team Markham

Wed Night B Pool: Team Hadsell

May 2017

ROCKTALK End of Season Bonspiel Twenty teams helped bring the 2016-2017 season to a close during our annual Season Ending bonspiel held on May 5 - 7. It is great to see how many new curlers have developed over the year and have the confidence to compete and call shots. Clare Moores is one such novice curler who took it all the way to the end. Clare’s Three Dads were crowned champions in the A-Event. The YesNoMaybees captured the B-Event trophy, and Hand Me the Hammer emerged with the C-Event title. Thanks for all of the participants, volunteers, spectators, and of course, the Ice Crew, for helping us close out the year with one last weekend of fun! A Event final: Clare’s Three Dads defeated Kizlyk B Event final: YesNoMaybees defeated Nelson C Event final: Hand Me The Hammer defeated Finch Lesson for this bonspiel – cool names win out every time☺

Champions: Clare’s Three Dads Clare Moores, Dave Falco, Mark Moores, Lance Wheeling

B Event Winner: YesNoMaybees Dave Hadsell, Cheryl Hadsell, Conor Schmidt, Rick Schmidt

DC Nugget: As far as curling experience goes, we are a very young club. The majority of our 400 members had never curled before our facility was built. Three quarters still qualify for 5&Under events. 2016-17 Members Years of Experience

C Event Winner: Hand Me The Hammer Debbie Ross, Craig Ross, Todd Jamison, Lloyd Yanis

Support DCC right through golf season If you are buying anything from Amazon.com, please consider using Amazon Smile and picking Denver Curling Club as your preferred non-profit. It costs you nothing and Denver Curling gets a small portion of sales for fundraising. smile.amazon.com

May 2017

ROCKTALK Board of Directors Election The Denver Curling Board of Directors consists of 12 members. Each member serves for 2 years, with terms staggered so that 6 positions are up for re-election each year. Any member of Denver Curling can be nominated to run in the election. This year we had 11 candidates nominated. The 2017 Board of Directors Election was held in April. All current DC members were eligible to vote. About a third of the membership participated, with 162 votes cast. Thank you to our nominating committee (Joe Knapp, Emily Lewis, & Kevin Cash) for organizing and tallying the results. Our new board members are Kendal Andrews, Brian Brown, Darrick Kizlyk, Kris Notari, Michele Page, and Rich Rein. They will join existing members Dan Ahern, Brenda Bedard, Justin Boshoven, Dave Hadsell, Emily Lewis, and Phil Moir. A big thanks to outgoing board members for their service over the past two years – Karen Bronson, Matt Culbertson, Jen Nguyen, Darin Romine, Alyssa Schear, and Sean Stevinson. Thanks also to past president Pam Finch and club treasurer John Cherrey for their continued support.

New Directors

Kendall

New and current board members will meet together on June 9th to transition roles and assign responsibilities for the upcoming season. The board oversees all operations of business including program development (leagues, events, instruction), building maintenance, financial, legal, marketing, communications and IT. They also make decisions regarding infrastructure improvements and the hosting of national/USCA tournaments.

Brian

Volunteer Impact At A Glance The success of Denver Curling would not be possible without the commitment of our league coordinators, instructors, ice crew, and other volunteers. In addition to 11 leagues, this year we hosted 12 bonspiel events (including the Margarita Spiel), 22 instruction sessions (including public learn to curls, member clinics, and Olympian Tour) and 79 corporate events. Denver Curling impact in the community is growing; we introduced curling to almost 2000 people (250 LTC participants and 1692 corporate participants).

Darrick

Here is a sampling of what our members contributed to achieve this feat: Bonspiels: 1268 hours logged for planning and hosting event Corporate LTC: 60 volunteer instructors for a total of 1617 hours Of the 44 members that recorded volunteer time, 11 logged more than 100 hours and 3 logged more than 400 (Guess who? Kudos Karen, Pam & Alex). A big THANKS to all who helped during the 2016-17 season!

Kris

Volunteer Activities 2016-17 (1167 responses) Michele

Rich

May 2017

ROCKTALK

THANK YOU!! Spring has sprung. The grass has ris’ I wonder what all this new equipment is? Not only is Dan Ahern the director of building maintenance, he has also donated almost a grand in lawn equipment. Thank you, Dan for the new mower, trimmer, spreader, shovels, and storage shed!

If you are available to assist Dan and the grounds crew with summer maintenance they are seeking several volunteers on June 3rd from 8:30 – 11:00 a.m. to help with landscaping clean up. See email for details. Stay tuned for other summer weeding parties and off-season chore requests. Any help is very much appreciated.

Meanwhile in the kitchen…. Jodi and Robert Onstad have donated a new freezer to help us store the catering supplies for events and bonspiels. Prep will be made a bit easier now with our new set of chef’s knives provided by Michele Page

Consider even a small contribution. Members make the difference.

Adopt-A-Rock Is yellow or red your favorite color? Here is your chance to show your continued support for our club by adopting a rock. For only $250 per rock, you can have your name engraved on the handle, and Denver Curling will benefit from your generous donation. If interested, please contact [email protected]

That’s why we love Denver Curling!

May 2017

ROCKTALK

CHEERs to a great 2016-17 Season

So Long, Ice out

Have news or contributions? Contact Pam Finch or Michele Page to have content included in the next issue of RockTalk