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USA Curling CEO Dean Gemmell on the 2025 USA Curling Men’s and Women’s National Championship being held this week at historic Duluth Entertainment Convention Center Arena:
“It's been great. We have a hard time finding arenas in Minnesota that aren't used for hockey at this time of year, and the beautiful DECC Arena was available. We are excited to bring this championship to Minnesota for the first time in a long time (since 2008). I know many people wonder why we don't have it in Minnesota more often, but the reality is it's hard to find a venue. It's been great here and the crowds have been pretty good. We're hoping the crowds pick up a bit over the weekend, but we've been pretty happy.
We basically come in with our ice crew, take over the venue and dress it up a little bit, and install curling ice over the top of the hockey ice. There were a few challenges with that, but we worked through those minor hurdles and now we're up and running.
The DECC leadership and staff have been supportive the whole time, and they've been great to work with. It’s such a great curling community here and people understand the game.
The media coverage has been good and we’re seeing good crowds. I think people who came in from out of town have enjoyed the event. All in all, we’re pretty happy with everything.
We have eight of our best men's teams and eight of our best women's teams here. I think we have strong overall talent, including a lot of good young talent in the United States right now. We had some of our younger teams do pretty well this week. They eventually got eliminated, but some are still teenagers, so that bodes well. We like to support them more with sponsorships to keep pace with other countries. But our players are committed, and I like the group we have.
Next year we're taking this event to Charlotte, North Carolina. Our Olympic trials will be held in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. For us, it comes down to finding a good venue and a financial arrangement that makes sense. It's not inexpensive to put on an event like this. Ideally, the local convention and visitor’s bureaus and sports commissions are supportive, realizing the strong economic impact of our events. This is really what we look at while searching for host sites. We love having this event in Minnesota, and we'll surely be back in the state with one of our other 18 championships. It's a question of which venue.”
