PORTAGE, Wis. — The wooden mantle near an entrance inside Portage's Curling Club needs an extension. Trophy upon trophy — state titles, national tournament championships — has filled the space to its limit, and the latest editions squeeze together like animals huddling for warmth in the cold.
In Portage, it's more of a surprise when a year passes without any new hardware from the high school teams, and this is where the fruits of that labor come to rest. Between the boys and girls teams, Portage owns 21 state championships and has grown into one of the most successful programs in the state. Townspeople are national champions and even Winter Olympians.
The sport, rarely thought of by most around the Midwest, is one folks in Portage relish during the winter months. They brave the snow for the curling club and play a game passed down by family members through generations.
"This is our second home in the winter," said Rob Shlimovitz, a junior on the Portage boys curling team.
Shlimovitz was a member of a Portage team that won a state title two seasons ago and lost in the finals last season. The girls team, meanwhile, is the defending state champion and edged another team from Portage for the title.
What makes players in Portage so good is a combination of love for the game and access to this club, where hours spent honing the craft pile up in bunches.
During the high school season, for example, Shlimovitz and Keagan Garrigan, captain of the girls team, curl from 3:30 to 5 p.m. after school on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Shlimovitz plays in leagues on Monday and Wednesday, while Garrigan's league games take place on Monday and Tuesday. On weekends, they compete against high school teams or travel to national tournaments.
"People don't know how much work us curlers actually put in," Garrigan said. "Most of us high schoolers are not just here at high school practice. We also curl in leagues at the club. We're here a lot more than say a basketball team that just has practice four times a week, five times a week."
Garrigan, a senior, recently was featured in Sports Illustrated's "Faces in the Crowd" for her high school achievements. She finished her four-year career 79-2, including 48-0 in the Southern Curling Conference. She also was a four-year champion of the Tietge Bonspiel in Wausau, the nation's oldest tournament. Like most in Portage, she learned from those in her family. Her grandparents curled, as did her parents and siblings.
"We have a great youth program in this town," said Sue Weyh, who curled on a Portage team that won the United States Women's Curling Association's National Bonspiel championship in February. "Because we're starting them so young, it just carries. If one person in your family is doing it, chances are, two, three or four are doing it."
The appeal of curling comes from its relatively easy learning curve, the all-ages nature of the sport and the tactical planning involved — it is often described as "chess on ice." You don't have to be a 6-foot-8 power forward to play at the highest levels as in basketball or run a 9.8-second 100-meter dash as in track. You simply have to be disciplined and willing to improve. At the Portage Curling Club, people point out that townsperson Forrest Moseley didn't start curling until his 70s and retired from the game under doctor's orders at age 96.
"I could teach you curling in about 20 minutes," said Jim Shlimovitz, Rob's father and coach of the Portage High girls team. "It's not that hard to learn. But when you get up to the higher levels, the nationals, the worlds, it's more strategy than it is physical. The strategy, the psychological part of it, is huge."
Curling is a sport in which players slide stones across a sheet of ice in an attempt to land them in a target area segmented into four circles. Each team has four players, and when one slides, two others sweep with brooms to guide the stone down the ice and land it in the right spot. The fourth person stands behind the four circles and calls out where the shot should be placed. Points are scored for stones that rest closest to the center of the house at the end of each end, or inning. There are eight ends in high school competition and 10 at the international level.
Portage's curling history dates back more than 160 years.
According to the Portage Curling Club website, the sport became a noted pastime in many Scottish-American communities during the 19th century. Although Portage didn't feature a large Scottish population during that time, the adjacent towns of DeKorra and Caledonia had a large settlement. When those towns introduced curling to Portage, the town adopted it as its own.
The first curling club informally organized in Portage around 1850, and the teams were composed of four individuals each. As the sport grew in popularity, Portage formed a curling association, and in 1910, membership totaled 50 people. By 1929, an organization called the Wisconsin State Curling Association placed its headquarters in Portage at the curling rink near the Wisconsin River.
Curlers in Portage used to play near the bank of the Wisconsin River and on Silver Lake until 1949, when the club erected its four-sheet facility on West Albert Street, which still exists today.
Portage Curling Club is home to roughly 130 members, according to Shlimovitz, and rates are dwarfed by that of other areas, making it easier to retain membership. A single membership costs $300 to use the ice any time from November to March. For a first-year curler, it's $150.
"You go to Chicago and it's a couple thousand dollars because they do it at a country club," Jim Shlimovitz said. "A lot of places do it at an arena ice, and they have to pay $20 dollars an hour."
Rob Shlimovitz has aspirations of becoming a professional curler, and he wouldn't be the first to accomplish the feat from the area. Maureen Brunt, a 30-year-old Portage native, started curling at age 5 and went on to represent the United States in the 2006 Winter Olympics. Wisconsin resident Debbie McCormick also has competed in the Olympics.
"On the high levels of the Olympics, those guys are in the gym like three, four times a week, hitting it hard," Rob said. "It takes so much energy to sweep how much they do. They play 10 ends in competitive curling. And it's timed. So it's really fast. You've got to go and these people are on the ice constantly, sweeping as hard as they can, every stone. They don't take time off. Your core and the balance you need to slide out that perfect time every time is really intense."
For most in Portage, however, curling is merely a winter hobby. The club, which opens in October, shuts down in March because of the rising costs of ice. Jim Shlimovitz said it would cost the club roughly $5,000 a month to keep it open in the summer because the ice, typically kept around 22 degrees, melts during the warmer months.
Weyh said most at the club resort to golf over the summer. But they still long for the next October, when they can call the Portage Curling Club home again.
"When fall hits and you start hearing they're going to be making ice," Weyh said, "that's a lot of fun."
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