Thursday, October 1, 2026
As I walked toward the bedroom door, I could hear yelling coming from the other side. The Olympics were on, and I assumed that my boyfriend, Chuck, a diehard hockey fan, was watching a hard-hitting game between two hockey powerhouses.
When I opened the door, he was glued to the television watching curling, loudly denouncing every aspect of the American team’s strategy and clearly angry that they were losing.
He was hardly alone in his recent fascination with the sport. Almost 300 people from across Long Island showed up for a clinic held by the Long Island Curling Club at the Long Beach Ice Arena on March 20. Some were curling veterans, but many, like Chuck, became interested — indeed, emotionally invested -- in the game during the Olympics.
Arriving at the arena early, I saw the first few people check in. Some had reserved spots in the clinic, and some were signing a waiting list.
As I chatted with a very busy Michael Greene, president of the club, the check-in line quickly grew so long that some hopeful curlers were forced to wait outside. Greene said the turnout was larger than anticipated, but vowed to get as many people on the ice as possible.
As the clinic began, groups of 15 to 20 people moved through three different stations, which gave them a crash course in curling basics.
Mike Amari of Franklin Square and his sister Lynn, of Brooklyn, waited patiently for their group, which had a reservation, to be called onto the ice. “During the Olympics I was interested to see if there was any place near here where I could do curling,” said Amari, adding that a simple Google search brought up the Long Island club’s Web site.
I asked him what it was about curling that intrigued him. “I shoot archery, so I have an interest in target sports and field sports in general,” Amari replied as he donned a brown shirt sporting a bull’s-eye and recalled how he was drawn to the game during the competition in Vancouver. “I couldn’t stop watching it each day.”
