Lakes Curling Club

About Lakes Curling Club

Lakes Curling Club: Four Decades of Winter Rocks in Detroit Lakes

Lakes Curling Club has been the home of curling in Detroit Lakes, the lake-country resort town of northwestern Minnesota, since 1980. The club sits just off U.S. Highway 59 and is run entirely by volunteers as a nonprofit, with a membership that has stretched from teenagers to curlers in their eighties. Some members have been throwing stones here for decades; Roger Lee joined in 1988.

Each fall, before league play begins in early December, the club opens its ice to the public through community education classes that teach the delivery, sweeping and etiquette of the game. Newcomers who catch the bug move straight into the Green Horn League, built for first-year curlers, while experienced members fill several leagues for different skill levels through the winter.

The club’s signature event is its Senior Ladies Bonspiel, which reached its 25th edition with 24 four-player teams filling the building over three days in January. Organizers credit the tournament with bringing roughly $10,000 in business to Detroit Lakes each year, and with showcasing the sport’s tradition of starting and ending every game with a handshake.