Local curling teams qualify for Arena Nationals

It's a big day for curling in the Sacramento area as two Wine Country Curling Club teams qualified for USA Curling Arena Nationals, which will be held at Curl Mesabi in Eveleth, Minnesota from November 8-12. The USA Curling Arena National Championships is a regionally-based championship aimed at determining the top arena teams. An arena club is defined as a club that is a member in good standing of the USA Curling and conducts all its on-ice activities by renting ice from a facility that is not solely or predominantly used for curling. Wine Country Curling Club had six of the 16 teams at the inaugural regional playdown event for the Mountain Pacific Curling Association (MoPac). The Mountain Pacific Curling Association is one of nine regions in the country and includes clubs from Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Oregon, and California. MoPac was awarded four berths to the national event. These four teams will compete against teams from all over the country to determine the top arena team in the country. The regional playdown event was held Sept. 29 through Oct. 1 at the San Francisco Bay Area Curling Club in Oakland. The winning women's team curls out of Wine Country Curling Club at Skatetown Ice in Roseville. Team Feldman is skipped by Katie Feldman of Sacramento. Laura Lunetta (Sacramento) is vice skip. Melissa McGuire (Roseville) curls at second and Lee Ann Shearing (Rocklin) is the lead on the team. The second-place team hails from Silicon Valley Curling Club in San Jose, California. They too received a berth to Arena Nationals. The winning men's team is from the Oval Curling Club in Salt Lake City, Utah. They narrowly beat out Wine Country Curling Club's Team Spangler, who had been undefeated (5-0) going into the final game. Team Spangler is skipped by Camren Spangler of Meadow Vista. The vice skip is Chris Hillman (El Dorado Hills). The father/son duo of Brian Feldman, Jr. (second) and Brian Feldman (lead) curl in the front end (both in Sacramento). Wine Country Curling Club is the local curling club here in Sacramento/Roseville. They are dedicated to promoting the sport of curling in Northern California and curl out of Skatetown Ice in Roseville. Wine Country Curling offers leagues, learn-to-curl programs, corporate events, tournaments, and adaptive curling (wheelchair curling, blind curling, deaf curling, stick curling, and Special Olympics curling). WCCC curls on Sunday mornings (7:45 a.m.-11:45 a.m.) and Tuesday nights at 6 p.m. but also offers the occasional Saturday night event.