gsoc01

By Ben Hoppe, U.S. curling writer

The eyes of the curling world shift to the United States this week as 10 teams descend on Sioux Falls, S.D., for a week that has been circled on their calendar since it was announced.

The United States Olympic and Paralympic Trials are set to take centre stage as eight four-person teams and two wheelchair mixed doubles teams vie for the opportunity to be Team USA in Milan-Cortina.

Over the last four years, the curlers competing this week have poured their time, energy, and resources into their goal of representing their country, but for the eight teams competing in four-person curling, this is only the first step. Both the women’s and men’s teams failed to earn enough qualification points to secure an Olympic spot for the United States at the world championships. As a result, the winners of the Olympic Trials will be donning the red, white, and blue in Kelowna, B.C., next month, where they’ll be playing for their respective spots in the Olympics.

Four women’s and four men’s teams make up the field to compete for the right to be Team USA. The teams will compete in a double round-robin followed by a best-of-three final. The U.S. Paralympic Trials will be a best-of-three match between the two teams in the field, with the winner heading to the Paralympic Games in March.

Round robin play for the four-person discipline begins on Tuesday. The finals of both four-person events, as well as wheelchair mixed doubles, begin on Friday.

John Shuster has won the last five Olympic Trials in the men’s event, while Tabitha Peterson has won the last two women’s events. This is the first Paralympic Trials event for wheelchair mixed doubles, a new event for the Paralympic Games.

Here are the teams that will be in Sioux Falls.

WOMEN'S EVENT

Team Peterson

Tab Peterson has represented the United States at the previous two Winter Olympics and enters the trials as the skip of the most experienced team in the field. In fact, all four players on the Peterson rink were involved in the 2021 Trials finals, but only two of the present-day members came away victorious. Sisters Tabitha and Tara Peterson booked their ticket to Beijing, overcoming Cory Thiesse and Taylor Anderson-Heide in the best-of-three final. Four years later, they have joined forces and head into Sioux Falls as the top-ranked team in the women’s division, despite a challenging 2024-25 season.

Thiesse already has her ticket to Italy punched in the mixed doubles discipline, but she knows that to win this event will take leaning on her teammates and keeping focused.

"We’re just going to have to take it one game, one rock at a time, and not get too ahead of ourselves," Thiesse said.

Team Strouse

At the beginning of this quadrennial, it looked like Delaney Strouse was ready to overtake Peterson. Success, especially in curling, is rarely linear, and the team has had to fight through the challenges one would expect of a young, up-and-coming team year after year, made even more challenging through a couple of consecutive seasons of roster changes.

The most recent change was the addition of Madison Bear, who finished third at the Mixed Doubles Olympic Trials last February, which she said was, “Some of the most fun I’ve had curling.”

Bear will be looking to replicate that energy in Sioux Falls, where she will be throwing lead rocks and calling the game. Coming into a new team, learning their releases, and figuring out how to communicate can be difficult, but every event has seen progress. It’s clear she is getting more comfortable calling the game for her new teammates. Team Strouse has made the playoffs in each of their last two events, including a runner-up finish in a thrilling game against South Korea’s Eun-jung Kim.

Team Cousins

Heading into last season’s U.S. national championships in Duluth, I had called out Elizabeth Cousins’ rink as one to watch. Despite back-to-back games by a wide margin early in the event, they showed their resilience, winning their next five games and outscoring opponents 49-27. They took Peterson to an extra end in a thrilling finish.

While they’re ranked lower than Strouse and Peterson, this is a team that can come out of nowhere and hang a bunch of points in quick fashion.

“Playing with rocks in play helps us stay sharp on draw weight and reading the ice,” Cousins said. “Plus, let’s be honest, curling’s more fun when there’s action on the sheet!”

Expect a lot of busy houses and fun games from Cousins this week in Sioux Falls.

Team Johnson

Twin Cities-based Team Johnson is the youngest rink at the event and heads to Sioux Falls as the reigning United States junior national champions. The Olympic Trials tournament provides a great opportunity for them to gain experience in a high-octane event early in their careers. While they are the most inexperienced team in the field, they cannot be overlooked. At the U.S. National Championships in Duluth, Johnson defeated Strouse and took a tied game into the ninth end against Peterson.

Their time in Sioux Falls should also be good preparation for the World Junior B Championships in Finland next month, where they will aim to get themselves qualified for the main World Junior Curling Championships. First, though, they know they need to step up their play against the top teams in the country. Qualifying through a pre-trials event in September, they had some intense games. Skip Allory Johnson knows they can use some of those lessons when they step on the ice in Sioux Falls.

"We do a good job of staying resilient out on the ice and just sticking with it," Johnson said.

MEN'S EVENT

Team Casper

The trajectory of Team Casper over this quadrennial has been a textbook example of a team coming into their own at just the right time. The team has emerged to not only compete with Shuster and Dropkin, but they are now a world top-10 ranked team in their own right and the top-ranked team headed into the trials.

So far this season, Danny Casper’s rink has two event wins, one runner-up, and two semifinal finishes, all in events with incredibly strong fields. The magnitude of his first Olympic Trials should not be too big for the 24-year-old skip.

“The expectation is always to win,” Casper shared on The Broom Brothers podcast last month.

The team’s victory over Kevin Koe in the AMJ Masters Tier 2 was just one of many indicators that they’re ready for the bright lights and arena ice in Sioux Falls.

Team Shuster

When I asked Chris Plys earlier this season how they were going to prepare themselves for the Olympic Trials, he referred to his skip, John Shuster.

"Hey, you’ve won the last five. We’ll follow your lead," Plys said.

His 2021 victory helped pave the way for Shuster to serve as the flagbearer for the United States in Beijing. Shuster’s rink is very much the “old guard” of the field. The youngest player on the team, 36-year-old Matt Hamilton, is senior to every other player in the field, with the exception of Team Casper’s fifth, Rich Ruohonen.

That’s not to say they are trending in the wrong direction. After failing to win the U.S. National Championship for the first time in a decade last season, Team Shuster has rebounded and looks much more like the team that was in medal contention in 2022. And if they get hot? The world knows what they’re capable of.

Team Dropkin

Korey Dropkin has exorcised some demons over the past year. First, he won his first national championship, where John Shuster was in the field. Then in February, Dropkin and Thiesse won the mixed doubles trials and qualified themselves for the Olympics at the world championships.

Dropkin has one more monkey to get off his back: winning an Olympic Trials with his men’s team. Dropkin, vice Tom Howell, and lead Mark Fenner looked well on their way to the Beijing Olympics when the momentum shifted halfway through Game 2 to Shuster’s favour.

Even though the team has not had the strong start to the season they were hoping for, they got a vital win to close out their last event and shifted momentum in their favour. It just takes one game to start a winning streak, after all.

Team Hebert

When John Shuster won his first Olympic Trials as part of Team Fenson in 2005, none of the members of Team Hebert had been born. And yet, the four young curlers from Eau Claire, Wis., have more years together as a four-man roster than anyone else in the field. The team was assembled by 1998 Olympian Mike Peplinski seven years ago, and he will continue to bring valuable expertise from his own Olympic experiences to the coaching bench.

While the road to Milan-Cortina is a long shot, Team Hebert will not be an easy game for anyone. This may be their first experience at an Olympic Trials, but it will not be their last.

WHEELCHAIR MIXED DOUBLES

Team Dwyer/Emt

Laura Dwyer and Steve Emt head into Sioux Falls as the reigning national champions in wheelchair mixed doubles curling.

While the duo just missed out on the playoffs at the world championships last spring, they have also been fixtures on Team USA in the four-person discipline, representing the United States each of the last three years. Dwyer is looking to qualify for her first Paralympic Games, and Emt has represented the United States in the 2018 and 2022 Games.

Team Ricker/Samsa

Penny Ricker and Dave Samsa both hail from the Green Bay Curling Club in Wisconsin, and they’ll be aiming to head home to Titletown with a Paralympic Trials title of their own.

Samsa has had success in this discipline, winning a silver medal at the 2023 World Wheelchair Mixed Doubles Curling Championship with Pam Wilson. He will be joined in Sioux Falls by fellow club member Penny Ricker, who represented the United States at the Paralympic Games in 2014 and 2018.