Chaska Champs
Recapping the 2026 Club National Championships
While many of the eyes of the curling world turned to Ogden, Utah as the World Men’s Curling Championship got underway in the United States, 24 teams made their way to Chaska Curling Center for the USA Curling Club National Championships. With both of last year’s champions missing from the field, new winners were crowned.
It was a week filled with some unexpected (at least from my end) results and some familiar faces finding their way to bring home hardware. And for one team, that hardware doesn’t have to travel very far.
Congratulations to all the teams who competed this week in Chaska. No matter the finish, just qualifying and putting the effort in to get to compete at any national championship is an incredible accomplishment.
Women’s Championship
Gold: Roth (Madison Curling Club)
Silver: Berg (Bemidji Curling Club)
Bronze: Thangadurai (San Francisco Bay Area Curling Club)
For the third consecutive season, the same club has won the women’s championship at club nationals, but it is a different team this time around. Two-time Olympian Nina Roth skipped her Madison-based rink to a perfect record in the round robin and only had to play a full 8 ends twice in the week.
One of those two games in the semifinal against Subs Thangadurai in what was my pre-event championship game prediction. The game lived up to the billing with Roth forcing Thangadurai in the 8th end to take the hammer into the extra and securing a two-point victory to advance to the championship.
Her championship opponent was Bemidji’s Nia Berg. The 2026 U18 silver medalists went 3-2 in round robin play and advanced to the playoffs as the 3rd seed out of their group. They then outscored their opponents by a combined score of 18-1 in the quarterfinal and semifinal games to meet up with Roth in the championship final.
Roth blanked the first two ends and was facing a busy 4-foot going into vice Lynn Brown’s last shot, but Brown flipped the end on its head with a runback to open up the scoring area. Roth was able to make a tap on her first and a hit on her second to hang a score of three on the board.
Berg responded with two of her own in the 4th followed by a Roth blank in the 5th, setting up what would be the decisive 6th end. The Wisconsin state champions decided to bring play under the Berg center guard, and the young Bemidji team had a few wrecks and jams leave Nina Roth with a bundle of scoring rocks going into the final stones. Nia Berg threw an excellent in-off to try to get undercover and limit the damage, but Roth responded with an angle-pick to score five. This would be handshakes from Team Berg and the championship to Madison Curling Club for a third straight year.
Excellent sportsmanship was on display after the game as the two teams spent a number of minutes on the ice together talking, exchanging hugs, and celebrating their success together. Just as it should be.
In the bronze medal game, Team Thangadurai from San Francisco Bay Area Curling Club defeated Chicago’s Team Yaple. The game was a tight one through the first half, but the MoPac champions were able to load up the house against Yaple in the 5th end and stole four points after Yaple’s tap attempt for one point missed its target. The steal would ultimately prove too much to overcome, resulting in a bronze medal finish for Team Thangadurai.
Men’s Championship
Gold: Caldwell (Chaska Curling Center)
Silver: Murray (Coyotes Curling Club)
Bronze: Johnson (Fairbanks Curling Club)
Whenever I put together my pre-event preview, I usually try to put a caveat with my predictions that I’ll likely be made to look a fool. While I successfully picked all three teams on the women’s podium (albeit not in the correct order), I failed to put any sort of “this is a total guess” disclaimer into my men’s preview.
In fact, I went so far as to reference the limited success host club teams have had thus far in club nationals. I even used the phrase “uphill battle” to describe what I expected to see from the host team against a challenging group. Little did I know, Brad Caldwell would look like Johannes Klæbo going uphill.
Caldwell dropped two games in pool play, both 1-point losses, to advance to the playoffs as the second seed from his group. The host team then defeated Dakota’s Evan Workin and Alaska’s Jon Johnson in the playoffs to move onto the final where they’d meet Sean Murray of Coyotes Curling Club.
Murray finished in a 3-2 tie in round robin play with Caldwell and Wisconsin’s Neil Fruend. Freund was the odd team out based on tiebreakers, putting Murray into an opposite side of the bracket from Caldwell. The MoPac champions defeated Seattle’s Chris Bond on a stolen point in the quarterfinal and scored two with hammer in the final end against Team Dolan from Minnesota in the semifinal.
The final was a game of steals. Five of the eight ends in this men’s championship were stolen ends. Murray stole the first two ends, and Caldwell responded with a score of two in the third to even up the game. After a steal in the fourth, Caldwell made two excellent hits around a center guard in the fifth end to steal another point, and that deficit proved to be too much for their opponents from Arizona.
Caldwell was able to withstand the pressure from Murray, making a crucial dig in the 7th end, and then left no space for Murray to score two points in the 8th end. The host club earned the right to call themselves Club National Champions on home ice with a 6-3 victory.
Their fellow Minnesotans, Team Dolan, faced off against Alaska’s Jon Johnson in the 3rd place game. The Fairbanks rink entered the national championships as the lowest seeded team in the field, but the team led by longtime skip Johnson and joined by an ever-improving supporting cast made an impressive run to be the top seed in their pool. The Cinderella story came up just shy of the championship, but the clock never fully struck midnight for the boys from the Last Frontier. They kept Chris Dolan chasing all the way into the 8th end and eventually ran him out of rocks to earn the bronze medal.
Competitions like this matter. They matter for the curlers who have the opportunity to show pride in their curling clubs and their home regions. This year’s event in particular showcased younger curlers who are getting more exposure to competitive events, especially for those who have to travel further to play competitively. In Ogden this past weekend, I brought up the success of Colin Hufman’s home clubs, Granite Curling Club of Seattle and Fairbanks Curling Club, at this year’s club national championship and he brought up how success can breed success, especially in a small town with a mighty curling culture.
Junior Curling Camp
Speaking of junior curling, the US Junior Curling Association is putting on a number of junior curling camps this summer. We’ve already seen many junior curlers take a big step this year. The question is: who else will be in the next wave? Team Tuma, who recently announced they’re sticking together for the 2026-2027 season, will be helping to put on these clinics!
More information and registration can be found on the US Junior Curling Association website.
Regions Cupdate
Minnesota came out as the biggest winner of club playdowns with Caldwell of Chaska winning gold on the men’s side and Berg of Bemidji winning silver on the women’s side. Here are my very unofficial Regions Cup standings after awarding points from club nationals.
There is one final Regions Cup event remaining - the Mixed Fours National Championship. Denver Curling Club of the Mid-America region will be represented by two teams again this year, including the reigning two-time national champions, Team Falco. There are a few scenarios where the Mid-America region could overtake Minnesota. But a Mid-America regional representative will have to win a number of places about Minnesota, who will be represented by a team comprised of a skip from last year’s women’s national championship, Courtney Benson, and 2024 5U national champion, Matt Mellin.
While I will not be able to do a full preview, I will likely have a short newsletter briefly recapping Mixed Nationals in a few weeks’ time along with a final Regions Cupdate.
Next week, I’ll be back with one final qualifier recap for the 2025-2026 season, digging into the final 5-and-Under qualifying events of the season.
Be sure to tune into Rock Channel’s social media feed where you can catch my interviews with players from the ongoing World Men’s Curling Championship in Ogden, Utah as well as my event updates on The Grand Slam of Curling’s website.
Until next time, good curling!
Thanks for this, Ben. These games matter, and so does coverage of them. Much appreciated.