Detroit Curling Club

About Detroit Curling Club

Detroit Curling Club: Curling in Metro Detroit Since 1885

The Detroit Curling Club is one of the oldest curling clubs in the United States, with roots reaching back to 1840. The present organization was formed in 1885 from a merger of several groups, founded by local farmers whose early games were played on frozen Orchard Lake. The club built its first indoor rink in 1906 on Forest Avenue in Detroit, moved to West Bloomfield in 1979 after Wayne State University bought the old site, and opened its current home in Ferndale in January 2002 under a 99-year lease.

The Ferndale building, a few blocks northeast of Nine Mile and Hilton roads, holds four sheets of dedicated ice and doubles as a community center in summer. The club has deep ties across the border: it was a founding member of the Ontario Curling Association, its members can compete in Ontario provincial championships, and its exchange with Kitchener-Waterloo curlers, dating to 1917, has run for more than a century.

Today the club runs leagues, a junior program, learn-to-curl instruction, groups such as the Sunday Sinners and the Rockettes, and bonspiels. Interest spikes in Olympic years: a 2006 open house drew some 500 first-time curlers.