QUALIFICATION PROCEDURES FOR 2023 FIVE-AND-UNDER (NEW CURLER) NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
Photo by SCCC
The 2023 USA Curling Five-and-Under (New Curler) National Championship will return to the championship calendar in mid-May with exact dates and location to be announced.
The Championship will host a field of 24 teams that are comprised of competitors who are at least 21 years of age and have five years of curling experience or less.
Following the inaugural USA Curling Five-and-Under National Championship held at Southern California Curling Center last season, USA Curling aims to continue to grow and promote the event, providing new curlers the opportunity and experience of travel and competition on the national stage.
“Although I started my curling journey as a junior, I vividly remember working hard toward making it to what would hopefully be my first national tournament, the Junior National Championships,” said John Shuster, five-time curling Olympian. “To me, the Five-and-Under National Championship gives curlers who found our sport later in life something similar to work toward.”
Twenty-four (24) Five-and-Under curling teams will earn berths to the 2023 Five-and-Under (New Curler) National Championship through the following ways:
Twenty-three (23) Five-and-Under bonspiels hosted by USA Curling member clubs across the United States have been identified as qualifiers. The winners of each of the qualifier bonspiels (identified below) will earn a berth to the National Championship.
The host club of the 2023 Five-and-Under (New Curler) National Championship will also receive a berth.
Qualifier bonspiels are listed below and managed by the member clubs that run them. Registration links will be shared once available.
Teams must include Three of Four or Three of Five of the team members that earned a berth through a qualifier bonspiel to compete at the 2023 Five-and-Under (New Curler) National Championship.
USA Curling reserves the right to remove qualifier spiels due to limited entries, to add qualifier spiels to replace events that are not held, or to make changes to the announced dates of each qualifier spiel.
Should additional berths become available for reasons such as teams declining their berth or a qualifying bonspiel being canceled and not replaced, vacant berths will be filled to create a field of 24 teams.
The fill process will begin with the runner-up team of the qualifying bonspiel with the most entries and proceed with the other qualifiers in order of number of entries. Ties in the number of entries between two qualifiers will be broken by comparing the number of entries the previous season.
If the tie remains, the records of the team that earned their berth to the previous National Championship through the respective qualifiers will be used to break it.
The 23 qualifier bonspiels (listed below) were selected based on expected size of field, event history, and geographic location.
“USA Curling is continuing to support the robust five-and-under bonspiel ecosystem by qualifying teams through the results of these events,” noted Dean Gemmell, Director of Curling Development. “Last year’s national championship brought new curlers from across the country together in a competitive, fun atmosphere, and we look forward to making this year’s event even better.”
USA Curling is sponsored by Columbia Sportswear, Toyota, Twin Cities Orthopedics, Training HAUS, Brakebush, ISS (Ice, Sports & Solar), and Sitrin, and is partnered with IHG, Rock Solid Productions Inc., Laurie Artiss Ltd. – The Pin People.
