John Benton, USA Olympian and owner of Cold Granite Curling joins us to talk about “the release”. Whether it be yourself, your teammates, your athletes, or even a brand new curler, Coach Benton believes there is a more simple and effective way to teach and learn the curling delivery and the release. In this talk he will travel through these discussion points:

- Release Point Review
- Glide Plane
- Understanding Deceleration for yourself and for your team.
- Closing the Gap with Extension
- Examples of Release
- Fluid Extension
- Drills and Practice
- Q & A

$5 Tickets

(registration closes at 11:59 PM EST Tuesday, November 3rd)

Watching the first part of this topic, Redefining the Delivery with Olympian + Coach John Benton (3/28/21), is recommended before registering for the second part of this discussion.
If you wish to purchase the recording of Redefining the Delivery with Olympian + Coach John Benton, follow these steps:
- follow this link: https://form.jotform.com/201907703184150
- email curleroutrech@gmail.com with questions/concerns.

 In this session, a panel of junior coaches will discuss their stories regarding bringing in and retaining junior curlers in programs that promote the development of skills and the spirit of curling in young people. 

This webinar is ideal for junior program instructors, learn-to-curl instructors, club event coordinators, educators and related professions, executive board positions and members of clubs who have had difficulty starting or sustaining a junior program. 

Topics include:

• Frameworks from various clubs for starting programs

• Methods in retaining curlers year after year

• Managing ice time/scheduling, tiering by age, lesson planning, behavior management and safety

• Inspiring team-building, creating friendships, and developing young leaders on the ice

• Communicating with first generation curlers and their families

• Encouraging juniors to compete, attend camps, and volunteer at their clubs

• Coaching the youngest of curlers - age 8 or younger!

• Finding and developing effective coaches/instructors for junior programming 

• Equipment, activity, fundraising, and recommendations to involve area schools

Hear from: 

Scott Sharp + Karen Dundore from Rice Lake CC on Starting Our Junior Program 

Vietta Kampen + Jim Shlimovitz from Portage CC on Maintaining a Legacy Through a Well-Established Junior Program 

More! 

Register today at www.curleroutreach.org

Sunday, August 8th
8:00 pm est / 7:00 pm cst

Super star and all-around great guy Colin Hodgson returns to the Curler Outreach Program webinar series. In this premium Sunday session, Colin will discuss various sweeping and breathing techniques that will help elevate your curling performance.

More details to come.

Register today at www.curleroutreach.org

$5 session
Sunday, July 18th
7pm est/6pm cst

Calling all junior coaches! The Curler Outreach Program is excited to welcome pro-curler and international coach Connor Njegovan. In this premium session Connor will discuss how coaches can use statistics to their team's advantage. He will cover topics such as:

• Using analytics to help guide your team's performance

• How to use the numbers to make your practice sessions and game play better

• How to use CurlCoach to gather team stats and info

• Practical advice on how to keep your team improving

• And more.....

This is a paid $5 session and is ideal for any level of coach, but especially those who coach juniors or intermediate competitive curlers.

Register at www.curleroutreach.org
Session is on Sunday, July 11th 7pm est/6pm cst

We are excited to have Simon Barrick present with the Curler Outreach Program. Simon is passionate about building inclusive sport opportunities—especially in curling—through community-engaged research, teaching, and service. Simon has curled for 24 years at recreational and competitive levels, and has been a coach, instructor, and consultant for many years. Simon is an Assistant Professor at Cape Breton University in Sydney, Nova Scotia teaching in the Sport and Physical Activity Leadership as well as Community Studies programmes. Simon’s research focuses on critically interrogating equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives in sport—with an emphasis on winter sports.

His presentation will focus on strategies for (re)designing introductory curling programmes to welcome diverse individuals and communities into the sport.

Participants will learn about the following:
- Clarifying equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) terminology
- The presence/absence of EDI in curling;
- Strategies for (re)building welcoming introductory curling programmes
- Lessons learned from existing EDI initiatives in curling and similar sport contexts.

Participants will also be introduced to a repository of relevant EDI resources—both curling-specific and more general—to take the next step in your EDI journey! This presentation is designed for people from across the curling world (e.g., curlers, administrators, coaches, volunteers, policy makers) who are interested in growing the sport in new directions.

It takes courage to curl with pride!

To celebrate Pride Month (June), we will take a look at events, spiels, and leagues that promote development and support a community of LGBTQIA+ curlers. This event is ideal for club administrators and leadership, equity, diversity, and inclusion committee members, and LGBTQIA+ curlers and allies!

Hear stories about:

• Creating the Out-Turn League with Mike Grudzinski from Detroit Curling Club

• Organizing the GlitterSpiel with Laura Yee and Courtney Shaw from the Potomac Curling Club

• The Canadian Gay Curling Championships

• More!

Zoom in on Sunday, June 6th to Sip and Spill with Head USCA Ice Maker Shawn Olesen and guest ice makers.

This is an open forum to talk about ice related issues.

So, sign up and bring your ice making questions

This week's seminar is co-hosted with the United States Women's Curling Association (USWCA). Our goal is to connect female curlers across the USA to learn about how to join the USWCA Circuit and become competitive curlers. There will be a roundtable talk and break out discussion rooms.

In this session you will learn:
-History/what is the Circuit
- How to sign up to host a Circuit spiel
- How to sign up as an player
- How to find Circuit spiels to go to
- Find teammates and connect to other female curlers
- Hear the stories/testimonials of women who have curled the Circuit

This is a FREE webinar

This week we are proud to present Coach Glenn Paulley to the Curler Outreach Educational Series.

Coach Paulley is a certified Competition Development coach for the sport of Curling. He is also the development coach for Wilfrid Laurier University, and for Curling Canada and the Ontario Curling Council

In this talk Coach Paulley will describe the Gauntlet Drill and its use in identifying and correcting delivery faults using the no-lift delivery.

The talk will be targeted towards competitive U18/U21 athletes and their coaches. As the Gauntlet Drill uses a laser to provide line of delivery (LOD) feedback to both the coach and the athlete, he will spend a few minutes to discuss different types of lasers, their use in a curling context, and coach and athlete safety.

Finally, there will be a discussion on the use of the Gauntlet Drill in coaching a team, and the importance of customizing the drill’s layout for different athletes as required, since not all athletes throw a curling stone in precisely the same way.

This session is ideal for any junior coach or coaches training the technical aspects of delivery.

$5 Tickets

(registration closes at 11:59 PM EST Saturday May 15th)

A common difficulty for many clubs is effectively using social media. Kristen Conrad, social media manager for Charlotte CC, breaks down the inside marketing tactics of platforms most relevant to clubs.

During this session, Kristen will share some advice and best practices for getting potential curlers' attention, driving them through your doors for a Learn To Curl.

As the Olympics are coming soon, she'll also give some tips on how to attract and foster the interest of the masses who will be drawn to curling during that period.

This is one talk that should not be missed!

This is a paid webinar. $5.00

Hear! Hear, the pipes are calling!

Learn more about curling’s most unique traditions- bagpipes!

Our panel will cover: 

• The history of curling and bagpipes

• Highland dress- pieces and names 

• How to find pipers for ceremonies

• Accomodations and payment

• What makes a good ceremony?

• Just Scotland the Brave and other tunes

• A performance or two from our panelists!

Our Piper Panelists:

*Kathy Thalmann was forced into piping at the age of 8 years old by her Irish grandfather. After growing into the pipes, she competed in solos and with bands across the Midwestern United States, Canada, and Scotland. In 2006, she began curling and instantly felt a connection between the two worlds of piping and curling. She was the resident Chicago Curling Club piper until she and her husband (whom she met curling) moved to Denver. Aside from piping and curling, she is a construction project manager in higher education, runs for fun, and is a dog mom to three.

*Todd Wyber has piped in many events for the Detroit Curling Club, and occasionally takes part in curling himself. First being inspired by his grandfather’s talents as a bass drummer, Todd has been piping for 32 years- since the young age of 14. Todd has served the role of Pipe Major for the White Heather Highlanders and Shrine Highlanders in Detroit, MI, but has also been involved with St. Andrews Grade 3 Pipe Band, Caber Feidh Pipe Band (currently), Metro Detroit Police and Fire Pipes and Drums Pipe Band (currently), North Coast PB Grade 2 (Cleveland, Ohio), and Windsor Police PB Grade 3. He has enjoyed teaching pipers of all ages and taken part in hundreds of funerals, weddings, and competitions- as a participant and as a judge. He is grateful for the many great places and people he has met because of piping, including his wife, who is also a piper herself.

*Scott McLean curls poorly out of the Seattle Granite Curling Club. They keep him around because he helps manage the bar. He is a retired history teacher and retired National Park Ranger. He taught bagpipes in a high school music program and was the piper for Mel Gibson at the premier of “Braveheart.”

*Rob Roberts currently curls out of the Ardsley Curling Club and Long Island Curling Club and serves as a board member. Rob works in strategy and management consulting for banks and insurance companies. Rob started curling in college, which eventually led to bagpiping- after meeting with curlers who were members who were members of the City of Chicago Pipes and Drums at the Chicago Curling Club. His favorite bagpipe song is “Eric Stein,” which was written about one of his first piping instructors. Outside of piping and curling, Rob has enjoyed lacrosse, distance running, days on the water, spending time with his dogs, and multiple musical artists and genres, including Billy Joel, Jimmy Buffett, Queen, Celine Dion, classical music, and French rap- the latter in which anyone who has bonspieled with him has come to tolerate at the least.

*Stephen MacNeil is the official bagpiper for the Traverse City Curling Club, and curls at the Leelanau Curling Club. He has been curling for 6 years, on well-named teams “New Kids on the Rock” and “Piper Down.” Stephen started piping at 10 years old, and currently is a Bagpipe Professional at Henderson Imports in Traverse City, MI. As a competitive professional piper for over 30 years, Stephen has accumulated many piping achievements, including 9x North American Champion, 4 of the top 5 finishes in the World Pipe Band Championships in Glasgow, and piped for the Canadian and Ontario Curling Championships.

This webinar is intended for other pipers, event coordinators, club leadership, and bagpipe fans!

This is a FREE webinar!

Mimi Stevinson is a member of the Denver, Colorado Curling Club. Her background in Strength and Conditioning, her certification in JOGA, and her curling experience make her a perfect instructor for curlers who are looking to improve physical fitness.

This week’s session Mimi will explore the principle of transfer and how curlers can make the most of their off-ice training and on-ice practice to improve their overall curling performance. 

Topics incide:

• Basics of the transfer principle.

• How coaches and trainers help curlers take what they learn about fitness and curling skills and structure their training session with the player or team.

• How training sessions on and off ice transfer to on-ice performance.

• Examples of gym to ice and practice to performance.

• Take-aways that players, coaches and trainers can use for themselves and others.

A fantastic topic that leads us into the “pre-season” for 2021-22.

Register today

Coaching Tip: “The Transfer Principle suggests that learning and performing one activity affects the performance of related skills and activities. This principle is essential for designing practice strategies that have the greatest positive impact on competitive performance. Correctly applying this principle saves valuable training time while accelerating results.”

John Benton, USA Olympian and owner of Cold Granite Curling joins us to talk about “the delivery”. Whether it be yourself, your teammates, your athletes, or even a brand new curler, Coach Benton believes there is a more simple and effective way to teach and learn the curling delivery. In this talk he will travel through these discussion points:

• What is "The Goal" of the curling delivery?

• How do you achieve and maintain consistency in your delivery?

• Are you as good in your last bonspiel game as in the first?

• How can you eliminate unneeded motion, wasted energy, and variability to produce an effective and repeatable delivery.

$5 Tickets
(registration closes at 11:59 PM EST Saturday March 27th)

Don't forget to get your FREE Release Point Method Handbook before you join us. Download it here: https://www.coldgranite.com/coachingandtraining

Our USA WCF Panelists Are:

Rich Lepping
Allison Pottinger
Leland Rich
Jennifer Stannard

This webinar will shed light on what a World Curling Federation representative does. All four of the USA representatives have volunteered their time to discuss their positions with the WCF and what it entails.

Our goal is to learn:

• What does a WCF representative do? 

• How are representatives appointed by NGBs (National Governing Bodies)?

• Is it like the United Nations of curling?

• What topics are discussed?

• Are there subcommittees?

• Is it fun?

• How can I get involved?

Free

Gerry will be looking deeper at the end-by-end "poker" percentage win-rate chart and using some other numbers to try and understand your own strengths and weaknesses while helping identify trends in opponent play.

This is one talk you should not miss. Recommended for beginners in analytics.

Floor then open for Q & A

$5.00 tickets

(registration closes at 11:59 PM EST Tuesday March 16th)

Want to learn more about wheelchair curling?
Looking to make your club more accessible for curlers with disabilities?
Thinking about running an adaptive learn-to-curl series?

Curling can be made inclusive and adaptive through engagement with groups from your local community. Tune in for this panel-style webinar to hear the following stories:

• Granite Curling Club (Seattle) on Encouraging Participation from Veterans
  with Yolanda Carbajal

• Cincinnati Curling Club on Creating Work Opportunities
  with Jonathan Penney

• Fort Wayne Curling Club on Funding and Building a Club on Inclusive Values
  with Craig Fischer

There will be applications to occupational therapy, speech therapy, physical therapy, special education, transitional programs, and VA clinics.

Look at the opportunities more than the barriers!

This webinar is FREE and highly recommended for club administrators, leaders, and instructors.

In this webinar, Natascha will focus on the topics of Growth & Resilience. Sport is life ‘sped up’ and we must develop coping strategies that work for us and our situation. In order to grow and develop resilience, we often must take a new/different perspective on things. The global pandemic has been challenging, to say the least, and especially difficult for athletes who have had every aspect of their passion stripped away from them. This webinar will give you an opportunity to reflect on the growth that's happened out of necessity.

Natascha Wesch, PhD (cert) OAMHP, CCC, MPC. Dr. Wesch is a certified Counselor, and specializes in Mental Performance Training. She works with athletes from all ages, backgrounds, and sports.

Registration is now open.

$5.00

Get excited about setting up your club's or team's webcasting program.

In this FREE webinar “The Basics of Curling Webcasting” Joe Calabrese and Brian Anderson will discuss:

• How to set web-streaming goals

• Necessary equipment & software

• Making your club stream-ready

• Identifying your target audience

• Using social media to build your audience

Register for this FREE session today!

Spend Valentine's day or Galentine's day with Coach Jensen and the Curler Outreach Program as we cover Deliveries, Faults and Fixes.

In this session, we will look at the keys to the curling delivery, what to watch for in analyzing deliveries, and how to correct faults that result in missed shots. We will also talk about lasers and video capture equipment and software that make spotting faults easy.

Register for this FREE session today!

Have questions about your ice scraper and want to learn about how to get more level ice. Then join our zoom session with head USCA Ice Techs, Shawn Olesen and Quentin Way.

In this webinar they will discuss:

• What do ice technicians do?

• Equipment functions

• Scraper maintenance

• Blade care

• Pebbling

• Repairing ice issues

Register for this FREE session today!

Join Chelsea Carey and Colin Hodgson's seminar on the strategies, tactics and basics of mixed doubles curling.

More details to come... but look forward to topics such as

They will cover topics such as

• How the predetermined stones forces the play to the middle.

• The different ways to open a power play

• Identifying a bail out point in time

• Who skips the game?

• To hit or to draw? Mixed doubles is unforgiving about missed shots.

• When to sweep or not to sweep your own stones, pros and cons.

Carey + Hodgson - World class mixed doubles vying to represent Canada at the Winter Olympic Games.

Chelsea is the 2019 + 2016 Canadian women's champion skip, 2016 Alberta provincial women's champion skip, and 2014 Manitoba provincial women's champion skip.

Colin is a three-time Manitoba provincial champion (2015, 2018 & 2019) and he plays lead for Team Mike McEwen. He is also the co-owner of Dynasty Apparel.

*NOTE: Registration for this event will close 8 AM ET on Sunday, 1/24/21*

Join Dr. Paul Luethy and guests as they discuss how COVID-19 has impacted the curling community.

Dr. Luethy is an Assistant Professor in Pathology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and Associate Director of the Clinical Microbiology Lab at the University of Maryland Medical Center and he is a curler at the Potomac Curling Club. He is the author of the research paper “Estimating the Burden of COVID-19 Symptoms Among Participants at the 2020 USA Curling Club Nationals Tournament”.

The webinar will touch on the following:

• COVID-19 disease and symptoms

• How COVID-19 spreads between individuals, with examples of case studies from sports and everyday life

• How testing for COVID-19 works and what a test result may mean

• COVID-19 outbreaks linked to curling from around the world

• Safety precautions curling clubs can take to lower risk of transmission at their club now and thoughts for Fall 2021

• COVID-19 vaccines

• Professional sports bubbles

This webinar is ideal for all curlers, ice makers, administrators, curling parents, and those with a general interest in science and infectious diseases.

This webinar will be FREE!

Register here

*NOTE: Registration for this event will close 8 AM ET on Sunday, 1/24/21*

Join us with Stephanie Thompson, registered Kinesiologist and Certified Personal Trainer, as she discusses sweeping

Curlers at all levels struggle with being able to apply more force to the brush head while sweeping and it comes down to 2 things: Poor positioning, and lack of strength and confidence in those positions.

For most curlers, sweeping is almost 75% of what they are responsible for during a game. Being able to improve your effectiveness on the brush gives your teammates a greater shot tolerance, and becoming more efficient maintains your energy and focus during a game, while also decreasing your risk of soreness and injury.

Learn how to choose the sweeping position that is appropriate for your body, and what muscles to train to help make you be more effective. We’ll go over the major differences between sweeping in an open vs closed stance, the basic footwork, common brushing mistakes, and some pieces you need to include in your training to make sweeping more comfortable and more powerful.

Dreaming of how you can create, organize and run an amazing bonspiel where curlers from across the USA, Canada, and beyond are trying to score an entry? Well, we have the OG club who knows how to get this done! 

Join the famous Cindy Kortebein‎ and memeber of the Rocky Top Spiel committee as they cover critical spiel topics.

Topics Include:
+ Goal Setting
+ Ice Quality
+ On Ice and Off Ice Activites
+ Budgets
+ And more........

A small curling club in Knoxville, Tennessee has created the most popular summer bonspeil. If you have not been, then you ARE missing out.

Sign up today to learn their secerts! 

The Curler Outreach Program is proud to present our first chat with officals.

More details will be posted shortly.

Susie is a lead USCA offical and was recently named as an offcial for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing.

More details to be posted shortly..

A common difficulty for many clubs is effectively using social media. Kristen Conrad, social media manager for Charlotte CC, breaks down the inside marketing tactics of platforms most relevant to clubs. You'll learn how to use your marketing budget to the fullest- she will discuss each major social media platform, how to create great content for your targeted audience, and how to set up inexpensive ads that can have huge returns. Whether your club needs to promote events, increase membership, or simply engage community, tune in to Kristen’s session to receive a framework for implementation!

***Like a little competition? Kristen will donate her cut of the proceeds to the curling club with the highest number of members present during the webinar. During registration, please indicate your home club so that you may be counted.

More details to be posted shortly..

Gerry will introduce teams to some basic analytical concepts around the sport of curling, including the idea of how to use probabilities in the discussion around risk management within your decision making on the ice.

This is one talk you should not miss and it is FREE.

Join us with Stephanie Thompson, registered Kinesiologist and Certified Personal Trainer, as she discusses two key ideas: 

There is no one way to throw a rock or sweep a stone.

There is an efficient way for every athlete to throw and sweep, and it is based on what the athlete can physically do. 

She will be answering key questions such as: 
-What are the key characteristics of delivery that an athlete must show to be efficient?
-What parts of the body need to be mobile, and what parts of the body need to be strong and stable in the delivery? (This is different than fitness; strength, power, flexibility, cardiovascular health).
-What are some key movements athletes must be able to “own” off-ice in order to maximize the efficiency of their ice delivery.

This is a ticketed event.