New Pond Curling Club

About New Pond Curling Club

New Pond Curling Club: Outdoor Curling the Old Way in Walpole

New Pond Curling Club keeps curling’s oldest tradition alive in Walpole, Massachusetts, the Norfolk County town southwest of Boston. Instead of an indoor rink, the club plays outdoors on natural ice, the way the game was played on Scottish lochs and on the frozen ponds of early North America.

The club traces its beginnings to 1951, when it started with three stones that originally came from the Lake Placid Curling Club in New York, founded by people who wanted to experience curling on natural ice. It plays on a single outdoor sheet, so each season depends on the weather and on cold snaps long enough to freeze the pond hard.

New Pond is a member of the Grand National Curling Club, the regional association for clubs from New England down the East Coast. In a state where most curlers play on refrigerated ice in Boston-area clubs, it stands out as one of a handful of American clubs still curling on a frozen pond.