The sport of curling, which is seeing growing popularity around the United States, will be on display here in Snohomish County when Everett’s Xfinity Arena hosts the 2017 USA Curling national championships.
The event, scheduled for Feb. 11-18, 2017, will be returning to the Puget Sound area for the first time in 20 years.
Everett received the right to host the championships after Seattle’s Granite Curling Club and the Snohomish County Sports Commission partnered on “an exceptional bid,” according to Rick Patzke, the chief executive officer of USA Curling.
“We couldn’t be more pleased to be bringing (the championships) back to the Seattle area for the first time in two decades,” Patzke said in a statement. “The Granite Curling Club itself has a long and storied history of competitive success … and we are confident that their partnership with Snohomish County will make for a successful and memorable national championship in 2017.”
Among the curlers likely to compete in Everett is Brady Clark of Lynnwood, who has a total of 14 U.S. national championships in men’s, mixed (two men, two women) and mixed doubles (one man, one woman), plus one other national title in college.
“This will be right in my backyard,” Clark said. “It’s definitely a great opportunity, and I certainly hope to be at the nationals to win the right to represent this country at the worlds.”
Though curling has its greatest popularity in pockets of the United States — specifically, the upper Midwest, but also in the Pacific Northwest —the sport is expanding to other areas of the country. As evidence, the U.S. nationals have been held in Philadelphia two of the last five years, and will be in Jacksonville, Fla., early in 2016.
“It’s very exciting to see the growth of the sport and to have the U.S. nationals coming back to Seattle,” Clark said. “It’s a great opportunity to showcase our sport and continue to grow it in the Seattle area. … And to be hosting it in Everett is just perfect.”
With 2018 an Olympic year for curling, the athletes bidding to be on the U.S. team will almost certainly be competing in Everett. “We may not know who they’re going to be that point,” Clark said, “but this will be one of the stepping stones (to the Olympics).”
The Granite Curling Club previously hosted the U.S. Championships in 1997, 1986 and 1965.
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