The United States Men's Curling Championship is the annual men's national

curling Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area which is segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules, and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take turns sliding ...

championship for the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. It is run by the United States Curling Association (USCA) and typically held in conjunction with the

Women's Championship The Women's Championship (formerly The FA Women's Championship) is the second-highest division of women's football in England. The division was established in 2014 as the FA Women's Super League 2 (WSL 2). WSL 2 replaced the previous level 2 d ...

. The champion is eligible to represent the United States at the

World Men's Curling Championships The World Curling Championships are the annual world championships for curling, organized by the World Curling Federation and contested by national championship teams. There are men's, women's and mixed doubles championships, as well as men's an ...

if they also rank in the top 75 teams over the last two seasons in the World Curling Tour Order of Merit or have earned 40 points in the Order of Merit year-to-date rankings.

History

The United States Men's Curling Championship was started when

Marshall Field and Company Marshall Field & Company (commonly known as Marshall Field's) was an upscale department store in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in the 19th century, it grew to become a large chain before Macy's, Inc acquired it in 2005. Its eponymous founder, Mar ...

was inspired to host an American equivalent to the popular Macdonald Brier in Canada. The

first championship The FIRST Championship is a four-day robotics championship held annually in April at which FIRST student robotics teams compete. For several years, the event was held at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia, but moved to the Edward Jones Dome in ...

was held March 27 to 30, 1957 at the

Chicago Stadium Chicago Stadium was an indoor arena in Chicago, Illinois, that opened in 1929, closed in 1994 and was demolished in 1995. It was the home of the National Hockey League's Chicago Blackhawks and the National Basketball Association's Chicago Bulls. ...

in Chicago, Illinois. Opening night of the championship included a performance by the Scotch Highlander band of

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...

, an all female bagpipe and drum band, and were televised by the local television channel

WGN-TV WGN-TV (channel 9) is an Independent station (North America), independent television station in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States. Owned by Nexstar Media Group, it is sister station, sister to the company's sole radio property, talk ra ...

Ken Watson James Kenneth Watson, (August 12, 1904 – July 26, 1986) was a Canadian curler. Biography Watson was born in Minnedosa, Manitoba and moved to Winnipeg later. He was the first man to skip his rink to three Brier championships in 1936, 1942 ...

, three-time Canadian champion, was hired as the commissioner of play and tasked with overseeing the umpires. Ten teams from nine states and one territory (Alaska) competed in a

round-robin tournament A round-robin tournament (or all-go-away-tournament) is a competition Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero ...

with Harold Lauber's team from Hibbing, Minnesota coming out victorious. Marshall Field and Company again ran the Championship in 1958, held at the Milwaukee Arena in

Milwaukee, Wisconsin Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at th ...

. In 1959 the newly formed United States Curling Association took over the operations of the Championship while Marshall Field and Company continued on as a sponsor. That year's Championship was held in

Green Bay, Wisconsin Green Bay is a city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The county seat of Brown County, it is at the head of Green Bay (known locally as "the bay of Green Bay"), a sub-basin of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the Fox River. It is above sea lev ...

at the Brown County Memorial Arena. In 1961 Frank Crealock and his team out of

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

won the fifth National Men's Championship, earning them the opportunity to represent the United States at the

1961 Scotch Cup The 1961 Scotch Cup was the third edition of the men's World Curling Championship. It was held across four venues: Ayr, Kirkcaldy, Perth and Edinburgh, Scotland. The tournament began with games in Ayr on 21 March. The second and third days were ...

in Scotland. While it was the third year that the

Scotch Cup The World Curling Championships are the annual world championships for curling, organized by the World Curling Federation and contested by national championship teams. There are men's, women's and mixed doubles championships, as well as men's an ...

, which would later become the World Men's Curling Championship, was held it was the first year that the United States was invited to compete. Crealock competed against the national champions from Canada and Scotland and after a double round-robin all three teams were tied with a 2–2 record. A playoff was held to break the tie and the United States lost to Canada to finish third. For many years after this the national champion would go on to represent the United States at the World Championships, though eligibility prerequisites were added in recent years. The 2021 Championship was originally planned to be held February 6–13 at the ImOn Ice Arena in

Cedar Rapids, Iowa Cedar Rapids () is the second-largest city in Iowa, United States and is the county seat of Linn County, Iowa, Linn County. The city lies on both banks of the Cedar River (Iowa River), Cedar River, north of Iowa City, Iowa, Iowa City and north ...

, and it would have been the first time the Men's National Championship was held in Iowa. But in August, 2020 the arena was damaged during a severe derecho storm. The ongoing

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

caused delays in repairing the arena and in November, 2020 the USCA announced that an alternative host site would be found. Only a month later, the USCA announced another change to the 2021 Championship when they declared that all remaining 2020–21 events would be either cancelled or postponed until late spring 2021. This postponement delayed the Men's National Championship until after the 2021 World Men's Championship and so the 2020 champions,

John Shuster John Shuster ( ; born November 3, 1982) is an American curler who lives in Superior, Wisconsin. He led Team USA to gold at the 2018 Winter Olympics, the first American team to ever win gold in curling. He also won a bronze medal at the 2006 Winte ...

's team, were selected to represent the United States. This gave the team the opportunity to compete at Worlds which they missed the previous year when the 2020 World Men's Championship was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 29, 2021 it was announced that the 2021 Men's Championship will be held in conjunction with the Women's Nationals and Mixed Doubles Nationals in a

bio-secure bubble A bio-secure bubble, also known as a bubble, or hub city, was a hosting arrangement for sporting events that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, under which events were held at a centralized site, often behind closed doors, with strict quarant ...

at Wausau Curling Club in Wausau, Wisconsin in May, 2021.

Qualification

The qualification methods and format of the championship has changed over time, but currently ten teams play in each championship. Five spots are awarded to the top American teams in the

World Curling Federation The World Curling Federation (WCF) is the world governing body for curling accreditation, with offices in Perth, Scotland. It was formed out of the International Curling Federation (ICF), when the push for Olympic Winter Sport status was made. T ...

(WCF) World Team Ranking System at a particular date roughly two months out from the championship. Four spots are awarded to the top teams from a Challenge Round, open to all United States curlers. The final spot is awarded to a team from that year's Junior Championships, as selected by the USCA. Previously the USCA's High Performance Program has had the ability to select two of the competitors from their pool of teams. For the 2021 Championship the qualification methods were modified slightly due to impacts of the

. The field was cut down to eight teams, included were the 2020 champion and runner-up, the top three teams in the WCF World Team Ranking System on September 1, 2020, and the top three teams from the Challenge Round. The tournament was later postponed to May 2021; as it falls after the

2021 World Men's Curling Championship The 2021 World Men's Curling Championship (branded as the 2021 BKT Tires & OK Tire World Men's Curling Championship for sponsorship reasons) was held from April 2 to 11 at the Markin MacPhail Centre at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary, Canada. Th ...

, the 2020 winners will represent the United States in their place.

Format

The current format begins with a complete nine game

round robin Round-robin may refer to: Computing * Round-robin DNS, a technique for dealing with redundant Internet Protocol service hosts * Round-robin networks, communications networks made up of radio nodes organized in a mesh topology * Round-robin schedu ...

where each of the ten teams play every other team. At the end of the round robin the top four teams qualify for the playoffs; if there is a tie for fourth place then a tiebreaker game is played. The playoffs are conducted in the page playoff format, a common playoff format in curling. In a page playoff the 1 seed and 2 seed play with the winner advancing straight to the championship game. The 3 seed and 4 seed teams play and the winner of that match plays the loser of the 1 vs 2 game. The winner of this third game advances to the championship to face the winner of the 1 vs 2 game.

Past champions

The location and champion of every men's national championship since it began in 1957:

;Notes # This column shows the results of the team representing the United States at the World Curling Championships. Based on the rules implemented by the United States Curling Association for the 2013–14 season, the United States team at the World Curling Championships is not necessarily the team that won the national championship. # Record is for the

. The

2020 World Men's Curling Championship The 2020 World Men's Curling Championship (branded as the 2020 LGT World Men's Curling Championship for sponsorship reasons) was scheduled to be held from March 28 to April 5 at the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, Scotland. On March 14, 2020, the World ...

was cancelled due to the

. # Record is for the

2022 World Men's Curling Championship The 2022 World Men's Curling Championship was held from April 2 to April 10 at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas, United States. Team Sweden, skipped by Niklas Edin, was the defending championship team. The 2022 WMCC trialed the no-tick rule for the fi ...

. The 2022 US Championship was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Champions by state

Sportsmanship Award

The Ann Brown Sportsmanship Award has been presented annually since 2007 to one male and one female athlete at the National Championships who are judged to best embody the USCA Spirit of Curling as voted on by their peers. The award is given in memory of

Ann Brown Ann Lesley Brown (1943–1999) was an educational psychologist who developed methods for teaching children to be better learners. Her interest in the human memory brought Brown to focus on active memory strategies that would help enhance human mem ...

, who was the first female president of the United States Curling Association and was the second female inductee into the USCA Hall of Fame.

References

External links

List of champions
{{United States National Curling Championships * Curling competitions in the United States

Curling Curling is a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area which is segmented into four concentric circles. It is related to bowls, boules, and shuffleboard. Two teams, each with four players, take turns sliding ...

Recurring sporting events established in 1957