When people think of sports on ice, hockey and figure skating often come to mind first. However, another lesser-known growing ice sport is curling, which is also featured in the Olympics. While Mounds View has many athletes competing on the ice, junior Violet Bartels has excelled in curling through participation in multiple youth national competitions and as a member of a United States under 18 (U18) nationals team.

Bartels initially started the sport as a freshman after playing basketball for around eight years. Even though she chose not to participate in basketball as a freshman, her dad, a recreational curler himself, encouraged her to still participate in a sport. “He does curling, and he’d only been playing [for] two years. So he asked if I wanted to try it out,” said Bartels. 

As a result, she joined the St. Paul Curling Club and started playing competitively four months later. Bartels says that she was able to learn basic skills quickly because the sport is relatively easy to learn, but honing more advanced techniques, like weight — which is the amount of force applied to the object that is thrown — takes more time. “Most players improve quickly until a few months later, where improving skills like weight takes years,” she said.

Currently, Bartels curls four to five times a week to train for curling competitions called bonspiels. “We’ll go into different drills, practicing our weight, like how fast we throw the stone, we’ll work on line, like making sure that we’re aiming correctly, and then we’ll focus on certain shots where we’ll guard [aiming the stone to prevent the other team from getting a clear shot at the house],” she said. Bartels also notes that doing workouts outside of curling and working on her mental health is something she focuses on every week.

When it comes to competing, Bartels has played on several teams, finding success in competitions throughout the country. As a sophomore, she came close to gaining a spot in the Youth Olympic Games, narrowly missing out with a third place finish in the qualifying competition. “We ended up being the only team to get within two points of the team[s] that actually ended up qualifying,” said Bartels.

Currently, she plays on both a U18 and under 21 (U21) girls team. This January, Bartels competed at the U18 national tournament, where her team had a winning record and beat the winning team but was unable to make it out of pool play — the initial round of competition.

With her U21 team, she is hoping to have similar success by competing at a qualifying tournament for nationals in March. “For U21 they have a series of competitions where, if you win, you get a spot at Nationals, but if you get in the top three, or depending on your placement in the bonspiel, you can earn points to hopefully end up qualifying for nationals.” said Bartels.

Surprisingly, Bartels is the only member from Minnesota on her U21 team, with the rest of her team coming from California. This means that Bartels represents the Mountain Ocean Pacific region rather than the Minnesota region, which makes training difficult because she cannot practice regularly with her teammates. The first time they all met was this October, and she had only seen them either individually or at competitions before. Because of this, the time they have together is crucial to developing a strong bond in order to play well. “We text constantly, and when we do see each other, [we] make sure we’re spending a bunch of time, just either connecting or playing. But I like them so much, and I’m so excited I’m playing with them,” said Bartels.

With much success already in curling, Bartels hopes to continue being part of an effort to grow the sport. In addition to qualifying for the U21 nationals, Bartels wants to create a Mounds View team for the Minnesota state championship. “It [will be] meant for literally just high school students that maybe want to try it. They come out and they can try, like, a bonspiel for the first time,” said Bartels.