Friends and neighbours (and rivals): John Shuster on USA’s close curling ties to Canada

“On the prairies of Canada, there’s a curling club in every town,” USA skip John Shuster told Olympics.com in the build-up to his fifth Olympic Games. “And the order, when they formed the town, went like this: Church, curling club, hockey rink.

“Curling’s the second thing they thought of,” said Shuster, a big grin on his face, from his home in Superior, Wisconsin, just across Saint Louis Bay from his curling club, in Duluth, in the State of Minnesota – about a two-hour drive to Canada. “And that says something.”

• READ | John Shuster: USA's Mr Curling on the Highs and Lows

Later today, here in Beijing, thousands of miles from northern Minnesota and its frigid winters and deep lakes, Shuster’s Team USA will take on Canada with both teams tangled in the round-robin at two wins and two losses.

All on the line

The defending Olympic champion American men had a hot start, with wins over ROC and Team GB, but they’ve gone off the boil a bit and lost their last two to Sweden and Norway.

USA’s curling has always lived in the shadow of its big neighbour to the north. In Canada, curling is a way of life. It borders on a national obsession. “It’s always been that way,” admitted Shuster, who was part of the U.S. team than, in 2006 in Torino, won a first-ever Olympic curling medal (bronze).

His gold in PyeongChang in 2018 put a halt on three Canadian Olympic golds in a row.

The relationship of the small towns and cities in the northern U.S. states of Minnesota and Wisconsin to nearby Canada is just about as cordial as you might expect. There’s a term: ‘Minnesota-Nice’ (which applies also to Wisconsin) and describes the outsized friendliness you’re likely to find there.

Canada often tops polls trying to locate the friendliest places on earth.

And while Canada’s obsession with curling is year-round and fully national, USA’s curling interest comes in fits and starts every four years. It’s also decidedly regional. But while the sport is considered a niche pursuit in most of the United States, in Minnesota and Wisconsin, it’s not only a big deal, it’s sunk down deep in the culture and dyed in the social fabric.

USA's curling capitals up north

“There’s a lot of curling clubs up here in northern Minnesota,” said Shuster, the defending Olympic champion who's here in Beijing for his fifth Winter Games “Back in the 40s and 50s, one of the buildings that all of these towns put up was a curling club.

“Curling is just a sport where anyone can go out there and join a league and have fun with it,” insisted Shuster, who was born in the small city of Chisholm, Minnesota, did much of his curling as a youngster in nearby Hibbing and now calls the Duluth Curling Club home.

Shuster sees, in curling, a kind of quiet community utility. It's a way to give order and meaning to days in those remote northern climes, faraway from the glamour of the coasts.

“You and three other people, you make a team and you play,” said Shuster, whose wife is also a curler and who followed his father – himself a skip – into a curling club at the age of 12 and never looked back.

“After the games you go up into the club room and sit around with the other teams and you do this kind of networking and it really builds communities.”

An accessible sensation

Shuster is his sport’s biggest evangelist in the States -- in addition to being one of its best all-time practitioners. If given half a chance, he’ll convince you that curling is something you need more of in your own life.

“It happens wherever you put a curling club, even in the cities,” added Shuster, who had the honour of becoming the first American curler to carry the flag at the head of Team USA at the Opening Ceremony here in Beijing. “Anybody can develop to a point where they can get that emotional feeling I get every time I throw a curling stone.”

No one knows – or appreciates – the “grassroots nature” of the sport better than Shuster.

In his team of four here in Beijing, he’s the only one who makes his living at curling. Largely amateur, and charmingly casual on the surface, the sport is a labour of love for most who play it – whether in Canada or the US, Japan, Norway or Sweden.

Shuster had his first taste of Olympic curling in 1998, when the sport would make its full medal debut. The U.S. Team Trials that year were held in Duluth. “I remember going to watch and I wasn’t blown away by what I saw…”

It was then that the touch paper was lit. "I thought, hey, maybe I can take this farther," he said.

Shuster has since gone on to great highs and deep lows. He’s won gold, yes, but he finished last and second-to-last in the two Olympics prior to 2018 – and was put through the cruel ringer of social media for his efforts.

Never, not ever, has he lost his appreciation for the humanity of the game -- those humble qualities that make it a fan-favourite every four years in the Olympic Winter Games.

Curling camaraderie and strategy

“You can see a lot watching curling on TV in the Olympics. Right away you can see the camaraderie and communication between the teammates and you get that for two and a half hours,” he said.

“There’s a lot of mixing the sport and humanity and strategy together,” continued Shuster, who leads a team of Matt Hamilton, John Landsteiner and Chris Plys – three from Minnesota and one from Wisconsin. “And I think that makes it thrilling.

“In Canada, curling is on all winter, every winter, and the ratings are great for it the entire time,” he added, frustrated that the same type of every-year appreciation can’t be (or hasn't yet been) sustained in the States.

“Canada has the most curlers but our growth is faster,” Shuster went on, noting that many curling clubs in Canada are beginning to close their doors.

Curling won’t ever be the NFL (National Football League) in the United States – though Shuster, always advocating for the sport he loves, does see similarities between the two. In the end, it’s the feeling of throwing the rock – and being a part of a team – that moves him.

“You know, there’s nothing like throwing a rock when you do it correctly,” he said, grinning. “There’s just something about the grace of it you can’t find anywhere else.”

Humanity and grace (and fierce competition)

Perhaps we’ve gone too far with the romanticism of curling here.

There will be Olympic-level desire, and strategy, on the sheet at the Beijing National Aquatics Center (converted for these Games and now known as the ‘Ice Cube’) when Shuster’s Americans take on 2006 gold-medal winner Brad Gushue’s Canadian team.

Only three games remain for both sides and only the top four teams move through the semi-finals on 17 February.

“There’s a feeling among curlers that OK, our game is good enough to beat your game,” said Shuster of the straight-up philosophy that often pervades curling – whether it’s in a club, ahead of a few beers and a friendly chat, or out here on the biggest of Olympic stages.

“I would put our strategy up against anyone else’s in the world: It’s like this: We’re going to play our game and you can come get it,” concluded Shuster, raised so close to his Canadian neghbours, but brimming, always, with American spirit.