Petoskey Curling Club

About Petoskey Curling Club

Petoskey Curling Club: From Milk Jugs to a Hoop-House Sheet

Petoskey Curling Club is the curling home of Petoskey in northern Michigan, and few clubs can claim a more homespun origin story. It began in 2014, when local residents experimented by sliding water-filled frozen milk jugs across an icy parking lot. Members later cast their own concrete stones using salad bowls as molds before graduating to real curling equipment, and the club went on to become sanctioned by USA Curling.

The early seasons were played on an outdoor rink at Petoskey’s Winter Sports Park before the club moved to the Petoskey Ice Arena in Harbor Springs. The U.S. men’s Olympic gold in 2018 brought a wave of newcomers, and membership grew to between 50 and 100 curlers by early 2020. The pandemic then forced a long pause, and the club returned in 2024 with an inventive new home at the Emmet County Fairgrounds: a single outdoor sheet enclosed in a modified hoop house, with tarps to shield the ice from sun, wind and snow. The structure goes up each year in mid-December for the winter season.

Today the club runs Learn to Curl events for beginners, weeknight games, and occasional invitationals against neighboring northern Michigan clubs from Lewiston, Alpena, Maple City and Traverse City.