Curlers anxious for Vancouver

Debbie McCormick expects between five and 10 friends, as well as her immediate family, to be watching her at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

And since she is a curler, they don't have to wait to make their reservations.

McCormick found out back in February that the curling team she skips had won the U.S. Olympic trials. The team skipped by John Shuster won the men's division. The curling teams were the first U.S. athletes to qualify for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games; most athletes won't know their fate until the months-or weeks-before the Games begin February 12.

Both teams will be at Rockefeller Center in New York City on Wednesday to accept their official nominations from the U.S. Olympic Committee. They will also be putting on a curling demonstration as part of the Winter Sport Festival, in which several athletes will be on hand to kick off the 100-day countdown to Vancouver.

"It is kind of crazy that (the Olympic Games) are only 100 days out," McCormick said. "We've known since February that we'd be competing in Vancouver. I can't imagine being some of the other athletes, like the skaters, who won't find out until January. I talked to some of the skaters (at the USOC media summit in Chicago in September) and I think that would be so nerve wracking."

USA Curling held the same early Olympic trials before the Torino 2006 Winter Olympic Games-when McCormick nearly missed out and Schuster qualified as a member of Pete Fenson's team. But curlers haven't always had such early notice.

When McCormick qualified for the Salt Lake City 2002 Olympic Winter Games, she didn't know she had made the Olympic team until December. At that point, the team had to scramble to find training sites and wound up in Europe for a brief trip. Upon their return, they then had to re-adjust to being back on U.S. soil and to struggling with jet lag.

"That was hard, because in December you have the holidays and then you really only have one month to train," said McCormick, who also competed at the Nagano 1998 Olympic Winter Games. "I like it this way. It's more relaxed."

The past year might have been more relaxing, but that doesn't mean the curlers haven't been busy. Just ask Shuster.

After proposing to his then girlfriend, Sara, two years ago in October, the couple is still trying to find the time to host a wedding. With Schuster training for the Olympic Winter Games and his fiancée in pharmacy school, they are hoping to finally tie the knot next summer.

And, of course, he has been training. For curling. Schuster laughed off comments from a reporter at the media summit who asked about the stereotypes of the sport. The curlers on the 2010 Olympic Winter teams, he said, are definitely not the type who are "smoking cigarettes and eating a sandwich while competing" that the reporter referenced.

Since the athletes didn't have to stress out after making the Olympic team, they have been busy preparing for what to do when they actually get there.

For the first time, USA Curling set up pre-Olympic training camps this year. Each team attended five weekend camps in Green Bay, Wis., this summer and one long weekend in Park City, Utah. There, the teams worked on strategy and tactics, as well as on the ice. They also spent time with athletic trainers and sports psychologists.

Along with the training camps, the teams spent nine days in Switzerland, training and playing teams from Europe without the distractions of everyday life.

Shuster said the camps helped a lot. Before, he said, the athletes would spend much of the first half of the season trying to regain their form. But by the time the athletes went to Switzerland, he said he felt like, "we were in midseason form.''

"To be able to do that ... I think it had a lot to do with this summer, not really losing it like you always have in the past,'' Shuster said.

Added McCormick: "USA Curling really made it a point of creating a great program for us to win a gold medal."

John Benton, one of Shuster's teammates, said that this past year has been the busiest since he started curling, as a 6-year-old. And that's been a long time for Benton, 40, who his younger teammates have nicknamed G.G., for "great grandpa."

"Life has changed quite a bit just in that there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about our training, scheduling time off work, trying to arrange for friends and family to go to Vancouver," Benton said. "At the time we won the trials, Vancouver looked like it was pretty far off in the future. Just a short couple of months later, it seemed like it is right around the corner and we don't have a lot of time to do what we want to do."

The men's team is rounded out by Jason Smith and Jeff Isaacson, athletes that Shuster used to play with and against as a junior in northern Minnesota. Their alternate is Chris Plys.

On the women's side, McCormick's team also includes Allison Pottinger, Nicole Joraanstad and Natalie Nicholson, with Tracy Sachtjen as the alternate.

As life gets even more hectic with the Olympics only 100 days away, at least one thing Shuster won't have to worry about is his work schedule. Earlier this summer, Shuster asked his boss at Nemadji Golf Course in Superior, Wis. if he could take a month off his job on the grounds crew.

"My boss actually said to me, 'You know what, you have to go represent the United States of America in curling, you don't have to worry about the Nemadji Gold Course."

For now, he just has to worry about Vancouver. And setting a date.

Story courtesy Red Line Editorial, Inc. Chrös McDougall and Amy Rosewater are freelance contributors for teamusa.org. This story was not subject to the approval of any National Governing Bodies.