Bunch of the Month: Fort Wayne Curling Club
Building a Club on Adaptive + Inclusive Values
Interview with Craig Fischer, president and co-founder of the Fort Wayne Curling Club. Location: Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Above and Below: Craig Fischer aids in on-ice instruction during an adaptive learn-to-curl.
Question (Q): What is your personal involvement and motivation with adaptive curling?
Craig Fischer (CF): My personal involvement and motivation in adaptive curling (and curling in general, for that matter) come from the fact that my wife and I have a son with autism. We were looking for an activity that we could do as a family and really enjoy. So often, parents of children with special needs do sports or activities with their kids and while they enjoy spending time with their kids and seeing their kids have fun, they don’t get to enjoy the game themselves because such accommodations are required for their child. Curling is one of a small set of sports where the parents can enjoy the sport just as much as their child while playing alongside them. The fact that nobody (with the exception of the opposing skip sweeping behind the tee line) is actively working against you makes the game less intimidating.
Q: How did the Fort Wayne Curling Club come to be?
CF: While watching curling during the 2006 Olympic Games in Torino, my wife turned to me and said, “You know, I think this is a game that Grayson (our son) could play.” That led to Googling the nearest curling club (Bowling Green Curling Club in Bowling Green, OH, 2+ hours away) and signing up for 6 weeks of beginner lessons. We had a blast during those sessions and found that our son could play and enjoyed it. Their season ended in April and we looked into starting something in Fort Wayne but there were just two rinks of ice in the city and there was little possibility of getting ice time due to high demand from youth hockey.
After the 2010 Olympic Games, we once again looked into starting a club in Fort Wayne and found that a new three-rink hockey facility was just constructed and not even opened yet. We connected with Greg Eigner, a local doctor with significant curling experience (including the 2005 U.S. Olympic Trials). From there, the freight train just gained speed. We met for the first time to discuss the possibility of starting a club on March 5th. By July 5th, we were on our ice with rocks and equipment for our first learn to curl with rookie leagues to follow and by late August, we were holding our first bonspiel with 40 teams.
Once we got into league play, we had our son playing with us, but his attention span and focus just didn’t work consistently for regular league play. Some nights he did great (including a triple take out on one occasion), and others he just wasn’t feeling it and we’d spend most of the game just trying to manage his participation. This led us to our belief that we really needed to establish a program that he could participate in where his bad days wouldn’t impact regular league play.
We started by buying some of the floor curling sets and taking them into his high school adaptive physical education class. We found that the teachers were really receptive to this and the kids embraced the activity. We did this for six Fridays in the gym, and then for the capstone session, we got the arena to agree to donate the ice time and we took his class onto the ice for their first real curling session. The kids had a blast and we found that every single one of them could participate with varying levels of accommodation.
When the club transitioned to dedicated ice, we found a local foundation (the AWS Foundation – www.awsfoundation.org) that supported individuals with disabilities and invited them out to see the club and talk about our vision of a special needs curling league. They loved the idea. Their goal is enriching the lives of people with disabilities and we talked with them about the physical activity, sportsmanship, and socialization involved in the sport and they felt it was a great fit. They encouraged us to apply for a grant and have been supporting our program on an annual basis
Five years later, when the club made the decision to purchase a building and move from our rented three-sheet facility into a club-owned, four-sheet facility, we approached the foundation with another request. The World Curling Federation offers loans of up to $50,000 per sheet for the construction of new facilities. The loan is actually made to USA Curling who then makes the funds available to the club. USA Curling has some pretty onerous collateral requirements, however. The club must have 100% of the loan amount in liquid assets for collateral or 105% of the loan amount in marketable securities. This can make it difficult to get such a loan. We approached the AWS Foundation about providing the collateral for the loan. We had a 5+ year track record with the foundation and they had confidence in our dedication and our ability to not only make the new facility a reality but also to pay back the loan, so they agreed to provide collateral for our loan by moving the loan amount into a separate account and restricting removal of the funds without USA Curling’s prior written consent.
Q: What was kept in mind while designing and building this new facility?
CF:When we built the new facility, there were a number of key things we were seeking beyond the basics (like good ice):
1. Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance – From the ground up, we wanted to ensure that the facility was accessible to all. The one part of our club that really could not be made ADA-compliant was where the locker rooms and bathrooms were located, but there was already an ADA compliant bathroom in the area that would become the warm room, so we added a single-use ADA compliant changing room.
2. Improved external visibility – Our old club was in a strip mall that had a warehouse attached to the back but the warehouse wasn’t visible from the road, so many assumed that the facility was just our office because there couldn’t possibly be curling in there. For the new facility, we wanted the ice to be visible from the road.
3. Better viewing of the ice room – Our old facility had a 8’ x 4’ window for each curling sheet looking out onto the ice which wasn’t the optimal viewing experience. For the new facility, we wanted a wall of windows with a completely unobstructed view of the ice room.
Q: In your opinion and perspective, what is adaptive and inclusive curling?
CF: In my mind, adaptive curling is making the sport of curling available to anyone that wants to participate, but for whom, perhaps, the standard curling league format doesn’t work. Most typically, this term is used to refer to people with either physical or intellectual disabilities, but it could really encompass a far more wide-reaching definition. The list is really endless, but it could encompass anything from veterans with PTSD, to people suffering from various mental illnesses, to survivors of domestic violence who perhaps are uncomfortable in crowds or being around people of the opposite gender.
The goal of adaptive curling is really to enrich the lives of the participants. It’s not about becoming an expert curler and developing the ultimate technique or, frankly, it's not even about winning the game. It’s about helping the participants feel included, accepted, welcomed and appreciated for who they are. It can offer the participants increased self-confidence, the ability to socialize with others in an inclusive, accepting environment and much, much more.
Above: A blind participant in Fort Wayne's program throws a stone.
Q: What would you recommend for clubs that are looking to do what you did at Fort Wayne?
CF: My recommendation to every single curling club out there, especially to arena clubs, is to find ways to make your club an asset in your community. Make your club about more than curling and about more than your current membership. We chose the adaptive curling route but that is just one of many routes a club can take. Other examples could be: veterans, underprivileged/disadvantaged children, seniors, etc.
Once you are recognized as bettering your community, a whole new world is open to your club. Increased exposure (the media loves to cover things like this – even in non-Olympic years), grants, sponsorships, donations, etc.
Q: What are your recommendations for clubs who would like to start an adaptive curling league?
CF: First, check with your membership and see who might have a personal connection to the special needs community. For us, not only did my wife and I have a child with a disability, but we have multiple club members that had a disabled sibling and one that was a former special needs teacher, so we had a high level of support for adaptive curling from the outset.
Next, find a local foundation that focuses on individuals with disabilities. Don’t ask them for money at the outset. Talk to them about curling and your desire to start an adaptive curling program. Ask them if they can make some introductions for you to various groups. You’ve then accomplished multiple things: (1) made them aware of you, (2) gotten some introductions to potential audiences, and (3) demonstrated a commitment to the special needs community without asking for money.
Then, start small. Invest in some floor curling sets and start by donating some time. Find a school or group home to go into and talk about the sport. They are always looking for different things to do. Keep these relationships going as the teachers or leaders at the group homes can connect you to others and will be important references as you seek grants and/or sponsorships.
Once you have a track record and some supportive references, talk to the foundation again about what grants they might have to help you take the program to the next level.
Q: How should clubs promote an adaptive league?
CF: There are a lot of organizations centered around specific disabilities. That is the first avenue I would recommend (Down syndrome associations, autism associations, etc.). Next, I would look to special needs teachers at schools, local charities supporting disabilities, and then Facebook advertising using keywords- like disability, autism, and Down syndrome.
Q: What are the most common obstacles for adaptive curlers?
CF: Transportation is always a big issue for individuals that are not living with their parents. We have had great success in years where we could get a local organization to handle transportation for the group homes and significantly less participation in years that transportation hasn’t been available. We’ve included monies for transportation in our budget, but haven’t yet truly “cracked the nut” on this challenge.
The other primary challenge we face is ignorance of the sport of curling. In Indiana, curling disappears from public consciousness for four years until the next Olympic cycle. So, not knowing the sport very well creates some unique and persistent hesitance in participation, things like “My child can’t skate,” “My child will fall on the ice because it is slippery,” “My child isn’t strong enough to lift the stone,” etc.
We have never really had an issue getting adaptive curlers to participate in the sport. It sometimes takes some coaxing and gentle persuasion but once they slide a stone down the ice with a delivery stick and see the stone slide, they are generally hooked. On occasion, the forty degree (Fahrenheit) temperature of the ice room isn’t to someone’s liking, but even that is rare.
Q: What are the biggest advantages for adaptive curlers?
CF: Curling is such an inclusive sport and the people that are attracted to the sport are very welcoming and have a passion for the game. This is ideal for adaptive curlers who face exclusion at nearly every turn. The fact that anyone can participate in the sport regardless of disability makes curling an ideal activity for those with special needs (whether physical or intellectual).
It’s really a pleasure to see our participants blossom as their skills improve. One example that always moves me is one of our participants who is entirely non-verbal and whose focus can vary widely session to session. He loves to come into the club and watch curling on TV before we go out onto the ice. One day he was intently watching curling on TV beforehand and when we went out, we helped him get the delivery stick on the stone handle and he got frustrated with us. After two or three attempts, he gently pushed us aside, leaned down, turned the stone on its side and wiped the running surface of the stone with his gloved hand, placed it down and then was ready to deliver. He saw them do that on TV and picked it up himself. We were amazed at that.
Q: What do you see as the future of adaptive curling?
CF: Our long-term goal is to make curling a Special Olympic sport in the United States, as it is in Canada. There are specific steps needed to make this happen. We need more clubs running programs like this, we need each club to have their local Special Olympics organization include it as a sport, and then once we get sufficient local Special Olympics organizations supporting it, it can become a National Special Olympics sport.
Q: Anything else you'd like folks to know- about yourself, your club, etc?
CF: This has been a challenging year for many clubs, whether they were able to operate or not. I would encourage people to support other clubs by attending their bonspiels in the upcoming season. Bonspiels are a key revenue generator for clubs.
The Fort Wayne Curling Club is hosting its Annual End of Summerspiel on September 17-19th, 2021. Thirty-two (32) teams on four sheets of ice with great stones that were used in the 2007 Brier and just lightly used thereafter. Indoor and outdoor broomstacking. Registration opens May 1, 2021. We’d love to have you join us. Sign up at www.fortwaynecurling.com.
Above: Fort Wayne Curling Club's new facility, built with assistance from the AWS Foundation.
Check out the following links to promote adaptive curling development at your club:
Autism Society of America- Find local chapters
National Autism Association- Find resources near you
National Down Syndrome Society- Find local chapters
The Arc- Find a chapter
Easter Seals- Find local chapters
Adaptive Sports USA- Find local chapters
Thank you, Craig, for sharing your insight on your incredible achievements in Fort Wayne, and for your work in the adaptive curling community.
Good Curling to Craig and the Fort Wayne Curling Club!
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