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When using the stick delivery format, this is the simplest of all events to host. At a high level, the steps are:

  • Book ice at a time that works for the family and is available at the club
  • Require participants to review the FamilyCurling.com tutorials before they arrive to curl
  • Have an experienced curler help the players get setup and guide them through the game play

A personal experience:

When you only have an hour or an hour and a half for a birthday party, the focus is on ensuring the players have as much fun as possible in that time. For this goal, I feel the stick delivery game format is ideal, if not critical. Please let me explain:

In one birthday party with 8-10 year-olds, we played a game with players starting their delivery from half ice. They were making shots, very engaged in the game and overall quite excited about the game play. After a few ends they asked to throw from farther back, so we moved back to a 2/3rd sheet length. They started to miss more shots and they didn’t express as much excitement as in earlier ends. Then they asked to throw the full length. During this end there weren’t many good shots made and the players demeanor and excitement plummeted. At that point our ice time was up, but I couldn’t let them leave with this impression of curling. Since the ice wasn’t immediately booked after us, we played one more quick end. I brought them back up to half ice and their excitement returned as they played a very interesting end.

I believe it’s critical that new curlers feel excited about their first curling experience. This will lead to more referrals and more people registering in curling programs.

Half sheet stick delivery games can deliver excitement in the first hour that full sheet stick delivery and slide delivery lessons simply cannot match.

One other item to note is the event is called a birthday party. Having all the players close together within half of a sheet makes for a more social experience.

.. these are my beliefs after working one on one with over 500 family curling registrants. Thank you for considering my thoughts. Derek.