About Monadnock Curling Club
Jul 15
Are you interested in bringing the sport of curling to Keene, NH, and the greater Monadnock region? We are planning to have an organizational meeting in early August 2014 to bring together as many of the people who have already expressed interest – and hopefully more – to talk about the next steps we need to take to move forward with our vision and our plans.
We are finalizing a date and location – if you would like to be included please contact us so that we can be sure to let you know!
Jul 15
Are you interested in bringing the sport of curling to Keene, NH, and the greater Monadnock region? We are planning to have an organizational meeting in early August 2014 to bring together as many of the people who have already expressed interest – and hopefully more – to talk about the next steps we need to take to move forward with our vision and our plans.
We are finalizing a date and location – if you would like to be included please contact us so that we can be sure to let you know!
Feb 16
Many thanks to the Keene Sentinel for their great article on the front page of the Sports section in today’s Sunday paper. It nicely promotes the open house happening today down at Petersham Curling Club and also mentions the work we are looking to do to bring a dedicated curling facility to Keene and the Monadnock region. The online article strangely didn’t include any photos, but the print version has a few great photos.
If you are visiting this site from the Keene Sentinel’s site or because of the article, THANK YOU! If you would like to see curling happen in the Keene region, there are three things you can do to help:
1. Visit the Petersham CC Open Houses – The closest place to curl right now is the Petersham Curling Club and to make curling a reality in Keene we need to build a group of people who know how to curl and want to make it happen here. So please do check out the PCC open houses today from 12-5 and on this Thursday, Feb 20 from 6-9. If you’d like to do more, please join the PCC and also check out their upcoming “Learn to Curl” sessions.
2. Fill out our interest form – Even if you’ve never tried it and just think it looks interesting, we need to get a sense of how many people are interested in the sport of curling. We’re also definitely looking for people who would be interested in helping us build the organization in many different ways.
3. Spread the word! – Please help us spread the word that there are people who want to bring the sport of curling to Keene and the greater Monadnock region. Tell people about the website… follow us on social media (and share/retweet our info)… invite us to come talk to your group (we can explain curling! 🙂 )… just let people know we’re here!
Thank you for visiting – and let’s bring curling to the region!
Feb 16
Many thanks to the Keene Sentinel for their great article on the front page of the Sports section in today’s Sunday paper. It nicely promotes the open house happening today down at Petersham Curling Club and also mentions the work we are looking to do to bring a dedicated curling facility to Keene and the Monadnock region. The online article strangely didn’t include any photos, but the print version has a few great photos.
If you are visiting this site from the Keene Sentinel’s site or because of the article, THANK YOU! If you would like to see curling happen in the Keene region, there are three things you can do to help:
1. Visit the Petersham CC Open Houses – The closest place to curl right now is the Petersham Curling Club and to make curling a reality in Keene we need to build a group of people who know how to curl and want to make it happen here. So please do check out the PCC open houses today from 12-5 and on this Thursday, Feb 20 from 6-9. If you’d like to do more, please join the PCC and also check out their upcoming “Learn to Curl” sessions.
2. Fill out our interest form – Even if you’ve never tried it and just think it looks interesting, we need to get a sense of how many people are interested in the sport of curling. We’re also definitely looking for people who would be interested in helping us build the organization in many different ways.
3. Spread the word! – Please help us spread the word that there are people who want to bring the sport of curling to Keene and the greater Monadnock region. Tell people about the website… follow us on social media (and share/retweet our info)… invite us to come talk to your group (we can explain curling! 
)… just let people know we’re here!
Thank you for visiting – and let’s bring curling to the region!
Feb 13
Why do we want dedicated curling ice versus curling on an ice arena? With the great success happening with Keene Ice’s plans for a new year-round ice arena here in Keene (which is awesome!), we’ve had several people asking this question – and the reality is that we may need to use arena ice as part of our process of starting up, but our end goal is very definitely to have dedicated curling ice in the Keene region.
We touched on this subject in our FAQ, but I want to expand on the reasons. The primary reason is scheduling. With an arena, you are competing for time with the many hockey leagues, the figure skating clubs, the public skating time, as well as rentals and other uses. The end result is that you typically only get to have time for curling on one day of the week, and even then at a time of little interest to others, in part because you really need about a 5-hour block of time to do setup/tear-down and play two games. (A typical curling game of 8 ends lasts about 2 hours.) If you look at the websites for some of the arena curling clubs in the region, you’ll see that they are typically only playing on one or two days of the week.
In contrast, with dedicated ice you can have curling happening on every day of the week – and can also frequently run curling “bonspiels” (“tournaments”) that bring in people and teams from around the region.
Consider the schedule of activities at nearby Petersham Curling Club. Here is their schedule:
That makes for a LOT of activity! And there are other rentals that take place during the day and other activities that happen at the club from time to time. Here in Keene we would also see curling ice being able to be potentially used by the schools for physical education activities – and we could potentially see our colleges being interested in having some curling activities or teams.
Or consider Broomstones Curling Club in Wayland, MA. They also have multiple leagues playing each day of the week – and their club is full! You CANNOT join even if you wanted to! They have a waiting list and simply cannot accept people into their club because they have no room for people to play. Here is what their league calendar looks like (and this doesn’t include their active youth curling program, their college program or their rentals):
You can’t build this kind of community and activity around curling with just a few hours of rented ice arena time!
For scheduling, the other big issue is the hosting of curling “bonspiels” which are tournaments where teams compete. I’ll write more about the potential economic impact of bonspiels in another article, but suffice it to say they are a great way to get people excited about curling and to bring in a large number of people from outside the region (and to have them staying in Keene hotels, eating at our restaurants, shopping at our stores, etc.).
A typical adult bonspiel begins with multiple games on a Friday night, has games all day on Saturday and then usually has multiple games on a Sunday as well. Typically there is also a dinner or other social event involved as well. The point is that the ice is used occupied for pretty much the entire weekend.
This is a severe challenge to try with an ice arena given the many other needs of the other groups using an ice arena. The arena curling clubs with which I am familiar are often able to do a bonspiel maybe once a year – or sometimes they are able to get single-day events happening from time-to-time.
In contrast, dedicated clubs can run a bonspiel each month if they chose to do so… all really depending upon their own organizational capabilities. Some, like Broomstones, do run multiple events for adults, youth (and different levels of youth), seniors, mixed leagues and more.
This is really the big reason why our end goal is to have dedicated curling ice here in the Keene and greater Monadnock region – either as a completely separate facility or as part of an existing facility. We want to build a strong curling community and have a financially strong and viable club. We want to have many different leagues and other activities as we outlined in our vision.
Please join us! Help us make this a reality!
Feb 13
Why do we want dedicated curling ice versus curling on an ice arena? With the great success happening with Keene Ice’s plans for a new year-round ice arena here in Keene (which is awesome!), we’ve had several people asking this question – and the reality is that we may need to use arena ice as part of our process of starting up, but our end goal is very definitely to have dedicated curling ice in the Keene region.
We touched on this subject in our FAQ, but I want to expand on the reasons. The primary reason is scheduling. With an arena, you are competing for time with the many hockey leagues, the figure skating clubs, the public skating time, as well as rentals and other uses. The end result is that you typically only get to have time for curling on one day of the week, and even then at a time of little interest to others, in part because you really need about a 5-hour block of time to do setup/tear-down and play two games. (A typical curling game of 8 ends lasts about 2 hours.) If you look at the websites for some of the arena curling clubs in the region, you’ll see that they are typically only playing on one or two days of the week.
In contrast, with dedicated ice you can have curling happening on every day of the week – and can also frequently run curling “bonspiels” (“tournaments”) that bring in people and teams from around the region.
Consider the schedule of activities at nearby Petersham Curling Club. Here is their schedule:
That makes for a LOT of activity! And there are other rentals that take place during the day and other activities that happen at the club from time to time. Here in Keene we would also see curling ice being able to be potentially used by the schools for physical education activities – and we could potentially see our colleges being interested in having some curling activities or teams.
Or consider Broomstones Curling Club in Wayland, MA. They also have multiple leagues playing each day of the week – and their club is full! You CANNOT join even if you wanted to! They have a waiting list and simply cannot accept people into their club because they have no room for people to play. Here is what their league calendar looks like (and this doesn’t include their active youth curling program, their college program or their rentals):
You can’t build this kind of community and activity around curling with just a few hours of rented ice arena time!
For scheduling, the other big issue is the hosting of curling “bonspiels” which are tournaments where teams compete. I’ll write more about the potential economic impact of bonspiels in another article, but suffice it to say they are a great way to get people excited about curling and to bring in a large number of people from outside the region (and to have them staying in Keene hotels, eating at our restaurants, shopping at our stores, etc.).
A typical adult bonspiel begins with multiple games on a Friday night, has games all day on Saturday and then usually has multiple games on a Sunday as well. Typically there is also a dinner or other social event involved as well. The point is that the ice is used occupied for pretty much the entire weekend.
This is a severe challenge to try with an ice arena given the many other needs of the other groups using an ice arena. The arena curling clubs with which I am familiar are often able to do a bonspiel maybe once a year – or sometimes they are able to get single-day events happening from time-to-time.
In contrast, dedicated clubs can run a bonspiel each month if they chose to do so… all really depending upon their own organizational capabilities. Some, like Broomstones, do run multiple events for adults, youth (and different levels of youth), seniors, mixed leagues and more.
This is really the big reason why our end goal is to have dedicated curling ice here in the Keene and greater Monadnock region – either as a completely separate facility or as part of an existing facility. We want to build a strong curling community and have a financially strong and viable club. We want to have many different leagues and other activities as we outlined in our vision.
Please join us! Help us make this a reality!
Jan 07
Happy New Year! With the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics only about a month away, how about we resolve to make 2014 the year we figure out how to bring the sport of curling to Keene and the greater Monadnock region of southwestern NH and surrounding parts of Vermont and MA?
We need your help! Right now we’d really like you to show your support for bringing curling to the region – and to let us know you are interested! We’re looking to hold an organizational meeting soon and would like to make sure we invite people who are interested.
Let’s make 2014 the year we bring curling to the Monadnock region!
Nov 26
Have you watched curling on TV during the Olympics and thought it looked fun? Would you like to try it out? Would you like to see the sport of curling available in the Keene / Monadnock region?
If so, here are three quick ways you can help us bring curling to Keene and the greater Monadnock region. Our greatest need at the moment is to build a community of people interested in the sport of curling and be able to show that support to others in the region:
1. Connect with us on social media – Help us show that people are interested in curling in the region by:
2. SPREAD THE WORD! Please share those pages and accounts to your own social circles – and please share/retweet/+1 any updates we post. Tell people about the website. Mention “monadnockcurling.org” to friends. Write up an article for the newspaper or some other printed publication. Post a notice on a community bulletin board… help us let people know!
3. Please fill out our form to let us know your interest and experience (and you don’t need ANY experience – just a desire to see curling available in the Keene area).
Together we can bring the sport of curling to the Monadnock region! We need YOUR help to spread the word! Thank you!
Nov 14
Greetings! Are you interested in the sport of curling? Have you played it before? Or seen it on TV and thought it looked interesting?
Would you like to be able to play the sport of curling within the Monadnock region?
If so, please join with us and help us bring a dedicated curling facility to the Monadnock region of southwestern New Hampshire and the surrounding regions in Vermont and Massachusetts.
