Utica Curling Club

About Utica Curling Club

Utica Curling Club: Since 1868, the East Coast’s Largest Club

Utica Curling Club is one of the oldest curling clubs in the United States. Curling in the area began in 1832 on a frozen pond in Clark Mills, and the club was established in 1868; it celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2018. An enclosed curling shed went up in 1890, and in 1916 the club moved indoors on Francis Street in Utica. That building burned in 1995, and a new facility opened in 1996 on Clark Mills Road in Whitesboro, just west of Utica in the Mohawk Valley.

The Whitesboro clubhouse has six sheets of dedicated curling ice and more than 200 members, making Utica the largest curling club on the East Coast. It has been the permanent host of the Mitchell men’s bonspiel, first played in 1911, since 1916, and it also hosts the Gordon International Bonspiel, which draws 40 teams, half from the United States and half from Canada.

In 2022 Utica hosted the U.S. Women’s Curling Association National Bonspiel, and the home team Utica 1, skipped by Anne Stuhlman, won it, beating Wisconsin’s Blackhawk Curling Club 10-6 in the final for the club’s first title in the event since 1967. The club belongs to the Grand National Curling Club and the USWCA, and runs open houses and curling school sessions for newcomers.