Everything You Need to Know About the World Men's Curling Championships in Ogden

SHANE:
All right, welcome out to the Ogden wire, and we are here today, joined by a couple of gentlemen from Weber County. I'm going to let them introduce themselves and let them tell us their titles, and we're going to get into talking a little bit about the men’s World Curling championship that's coming up here at Weber State. I am joined by Marty Smith, Marty, your title at Weber County?

MARTY SMITH:
I'm the Director of Culture, Parks and Recreation at Weber County.

SHANE:
That’s a big umbrella. We can get into what all that entails in just a minute. And on my other side, I've got Todd Ferrario. Todd, tell them what you do.

TODD FERRARIO:
I’m Assistant Director for culture Parks and Rec, or Sherpa, one of the two.

SHANE:
Always hauling the heavy stuff.

So if you get out and you enjoy anything in Weber County, like anything from North Fork Park to Fort Buenaventura to the Ogden Eccles Conference Center, to the Ice Sheet, to the shooting complex, to the archery range. So much falls under your umbrella. And we are here to talk about something that's really cool about to come to one of our great venues, the Weber County Ice Sheet. Tell us a little bit about what we can expect here in the end of March. What do we got coming at us?

MARTY:
March 27 through April 4, we have the LGT Men's World Curling Championship, which is basically a world event, as expressed in the title.

Surprisingly, it comes right after the Olympics, right on the heels. So there actually is a lot of… we're surprised at how much attention kind of came with curling this time around at the Olympics. So we're hoping that excitement will sort of overflow into our event coming here next month.

But basically, we were approached by the World Curling Federation, the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation, who then, in turn, approached Sara Toliver at Visit Ogden, who then turned to us, because we're the venue, and they just said, “Hey, do you want to, do you want to bid on this event?” And we said, “Of course, it's what we do in Ogden!” We basically say, we find a way to say yes, especially with a world event, we want to do that.

So Sara and Todd did the most of the work on the actual bid process. They did a great job in building that bid, put it together and then they gave it to us. Todd, I don't know what maybe you can talk about, what went into that bid and getting it?

TODD:
Well, the beauty of it is, we've been there and done that, right? We had the Olympics in 2002 and we were the curling venue.

I wouldn't say curling is the biggest sport we have at our ice rink, but it's an important piece, so we were more than excited to bring it back. We obviously our state is looking forward to 2034 and as Marty mentioned, Visit Ogden does a good job at throwing maybe strange items, sometimes at us to see if our glove will catch them. And we said, "You bet!” We were very lucky, as we'll talk about a little later, the state had earmarked some funds for the sustainability of past Olympic venues. Couldn't come at a better time, some of the improvements we'll talk about later were due to that. You know, we don't have $3.8 million to pull out for a world's event, but we were going to rehab that facility as well, and it's given us a good push forward.

SHANE:
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but that was purpose built for the Olympics, is that right? The ice sheet was originally built for the curling venue in 2002 and then understanding it would be, continue to be a hockey rink and everything else, right?

TODD:
Correct. Utah, as well as some other countries or venues, the idea is to leave a legacy for the community. So yeah, that was actually the first specific venue in our state to be built for the Olympics. And you guys know, Rice-Eccles [stadium] and a few are existing buildings or facilities to be used. But that ground up was the first one in our state.

MARTY:
The interesting thing about that is it is a great example of post-Olympics being so successful that we needed to expand it, which Todd was a part of anything that's hard to do. We turned to Todd and his county and say, “Hey, will you go do this project?” But expanded it. Weber State came on board. Built that field house above it, because it's on their property now it's, it's big complex there that is full all the time.

SHANE:
So it was previously an Olympic venue. Now it's going to be hosting a World Championships, but there's been a 20, what, 24-year span since the, you know, since the Olympics were there. What improvements were needed to be done? What can people see there's gonna be different when they walk in to see the world world championships.

TODD:
Well, I tell everybody, you're gonna see some things and some things you're going to feel. And by feel, I mean, we have a huge infrastructure to run an ice rink, right? We're heating a building to put ice in, not necessarily the best combo, but our fans don't like to sit in 20 degree buildings.

Part of that, almost a million dollars, of that, goes into compressors and chillers, which are allowing us to be ice rinks, pure and simple. The things they'll really see from the visual aspect, the main arena has all new sound systems. When they put those in, they pointed speakers down at ICE. And I'm in a beautiful sound studio. You know? That is a great concept.

So we have beautiful array speakers up now. We have new LED screens, both on the west side and on the north end. New scoreboards. We have new concession stands being completely retrofitted. Before we were chatting, you brought up pizza ovens when that facility was built, your expectation was a hot dog of soda and popcorn. That's not the expectation of a concession stand any longer.

This little studio we're in is about twice the size of our concession stand. So we got the can opener out and we pried some holes and did some mill work, and we've got pizza ovens and new fridges and popcorn makers, and we can produce some food, because we've got 2400 plus seats in that venue. So they should see some good things, some housekeeping downstairs. The locker rooms originally built, locker room one and two shared a very large bathroom facility with shower rooms.

Three and four shared one. Also, that's great when you have a girls team in one and a guy's team in two, or you have youth in one and adults in the other. Obviously, sport and world has changed, so there's quite a few dollars going in to divide those out. So each locker room has its own restroom and shower facility. And so I think they'll see a lot of touches, from flooring to paint to new entry desks and VIP room furniture, and it's a pretty good whitewash of the whole place to add to the facility.

SHANE:
Well, and when it's all decked out for a world championships, it is also it takes it to a different level as well. It's not, not like you're coming to watch that your local curling club slide stones on the ice. You know you'll see what you just saw in the Olympics, with the carpeted alleyways and the cameras and the TV trucks outside and yeah. So March 27 through April 4.

Now this is a ticketed event. Where can people get tickets?

MARTY:
Well, great question. They can go to worldcurlingogden.com or you can go to visitogden.com click the Events tab, and you'll just go down through the events and find World Curling right there, and that'll link you out to tickets also.

SHANE:
So and there are corporate and group rates. If you you know more than purchase 20 or more tickets, 10% off. Those that purchase 50 or more tickets get you 20% off. There's VIP opportunities. Tell us about that.

MARTY:
That actually is a really great opportunity. Hope folks pay attention to that. Because if you're a local or even a regional Corporation, organization, association, and you want to have a great experience for folks. This can come in the form of a sponsorship or just a VIP group purchase, where you can come in and we have a super cool VIP area we're going to have set up. It's its own exclusive area in the ice sheet, where as the events going on, you can bring your group. You can sit in exclusive seats. You can have access to exclusive food and beverage in a bar all in your own and take care of your folks. That comes with a block of tickets, whatever arrangement you want to have, however many tickets you want to group up, that opportunity is there, and you can just contact Sara at visit Ogden, and she will hook you up with that.

SHANE:
I understand, there's a learn-to-curl opportunity, included, as well.

MARTY:
Some of those have a learn to curl opportunity, yep, and I've heard that that's actually pretty popular. So if you want to do that, which, by the way, if you've ever tried that, I don't know if you've tried that, Shane, but it it's not near as easy as they make it look on TV.

SHANE:
I have tried. I have tried curling a few times, and it is not as everyone I see on social media. It's like, “Oh, I could do that sport. I could!” No, you couldn't.

MARTY:
Yeah, try to glide on one shoe on the ice…

SHANE:
… with all your body weight centered on like a tightrope. It's not just like you're pushing a rock, yeah, it's, it's difficult, very fun to watch. You start the Olympics. Helped everyone kind of understand some of the lingo, some of the strategies. So now's a good time to come out and see it in person. A lot of those same teams that we saw competing in the Olympics are going to be here in Ogden.

MARTY:
That’s right, 13 teams, I think, to be exact.

SHANE:
And now also, there's a lot of ways to plug into this, besides just being a spectator in the community, I know that on both weekends of the championships, there's a big outdoor festival just outside the arena there at the ice sheet on both weekends. It'll include what beer vendors and food trucks. I know there's kids activities. What more can you tell us about all this?

MARTY:
Yeah, so that's going to be going on. There will be entertainment, food, beverages, of all choices, depending on what you like. And there's also a festival downtown at The Monarch.

SHANE:
Yeah. So, yeah, The Monarch. It's gonna be the closing party, basically, but it's before the medals match. So it'll be on the Friday night, the first Friday. So there'll be a First Friday art stroll going on, there'll be live music, there'll be potentially meet and greets. And then we don't, we can't really talk about which teams will be there yet, because we it'll depend on who made the final medal round and they may not be wanting to go out and do meet and greet the night before a big gold medal match.

MARTY:
But just a great opportunity for the community, and this is where Ogden is so good at integrating and and bringing the community in to experience this event, not just from being there on the ice, but what's surrounding it. I mean, I can't think it would be more fun but to go down and party with the community and celebrate World Curling, being in town, and meet some of the players. And, yeah, I mean…

SHANE:
And there's a vibe about the sport. I mean, there's an entire culture around the sport that it just leans into that. And part of the official rules of curling is the losing team has to buy the winning team drinks. Yeah, yeah. These guys like to party.

MARTY:
Yeah, this, this comes with its own culture. You're exactly right. I mean, curling is its own thing. And they embrace sort of the party culture, I think, probably a little bit and just, but we were just commenting and how the change in athletes and curling over the last, you know, 20, 25 years is these, these guys are kind of ripped. I mean, they're they're serious. It's serious businesses, as you saw in the Olympics.

SHANE:
Well, former the mayor of Ogden, Mayor Caldwell, was, what was the manager up there at the ice sheet during the Olympics, and he helped run that venue. And he always jokes and tells me, he's like, “It's the only venue in the Olympics that had a designated athlete smoking lounge.” So, yeah, they may have changed a little bit because they looked a lot more fit in the Olympics.

MARTY:
Yeah, it does have a reputation. And of course, there are some countries, as you know, that are huge curling. Countries like Canada that embrace that whole, you know, there's a, there's a an official beer coming with curling, and there's a whole thing behind that.

TODD:
And that beer’s out of Colorado, Dales. So they are official sponsor of USA curling, so we will have Dales in the house.

SHANE:
Now we mentioned tickets are all available for purchase at worldcurlingogden.com but also it's worth mentioning that kids tix are free for any of the day sessions.. So if you have some little and that happens to be during spring break, so if you got the littles at home that are at off school for that week, and you're looking for something to do, and kind of we'd love to see their butts in the seats up there watching some curling, and then those kids tix are free, so check that out.

MARTY:
Yeah, we always want the kids to come experience that, because this is a future right, future generation, future curlers, future hockey players. There's nothing better than getting kids in the venue to experience something like that and get them excited about that.

TODD:
I think it's good to teach them, because they, as you said, there's, there's a different look to that arena when it's a world or a national type event. And what people don't understand is the broadcast side of this event is massive. We have teams coming from all over the world to handle broadcasting, because it will be shown live all throughout Europe, all throughout Asia,
there will be hundreds of thousands of people tuning in to watch a sport in our backyard. And so what you see in person and what you see on TV is going to be very similar.

SHANE:
Are we missing anything about this event?

MARTY:
No, I just, you know, big. Thank you to the Utah legislature for appropriating these funds for this huge remodel that Todd has actually been the one to head that up. And when I think, when folks walk into the arena and see the changes we have made, not only from a sustainability aspect, you know, full LED conversion on the ice to some of the customer experience has really become the forefront of venue venues these days, right? You know? And it used to be like Todd likes to say a bag of popcorn and a soda was what people wanted. They want much more now. And when you see the video boards and speaker arrays and the color and the food experience. It's, it's, and just the transformation of the venue. It's, it's super cool.

SHANE:
Right on! March 27 through April 4 at the Weber County Ice Sheet up at the campus there at Weber State University, plenty of parking around the Dee Events Center. OGX will drop you right close if you want to stay downtown or commute back and forth from downtown. Again, kids, tix are free. Yeah. And then make sure you plug into those community events, even if you don't get into the arena. Come check out the festival outside, up in the parking lot out there, just outside the ice sheet, and do not miss the closing party down at the monarch on Friday, April 3. That's the first Friday art stroll, and that's one night before the medals match. So you'll get a chance to meet and greet some of those curlers you've been seeing. Am I missing anything fellas?

MARTY/TODD: No,

SHANE:
Alright. Hope to see you guys up at the ice sheet!