OGDEN -- America's premier curling competition will slide onto a fresh new surface Friday for an eight-day run at the Weber County Ice Sheet.
The event is the USA Curling 2000 National Championships, and the stakes are high for the 16 men's and 10 women's curling teams that will compete here through March 11.Winning teams will represent the United States at the World Curling Championships in Scotland, April 1-9, and earn a berth in the final trials for the 2002 Winter Games.
The first major curling competition ever held in Utah, the 2000 National Championship will feature most of the nation's top curlers, including both of the men's and women's Team USA curling units that competed in the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.
To prepare for the tournament, workers have removed the old surface of the ice sheet along with all of the old curling and hockey surface markings.
"We started making new ice" last Saturday, said Cathleen Dressler, Weber County's recreation director and Olympics coordinator. "It's a four- to five-day process."
Workers are putting down multiple layers of new ice and adding new curling markings that will divide the ice sheet into six "curling sheets" or lanes.
Once the surface has been built up and properly marked, it will be time to painstakingly level the ice surface and then "pebble" it -- a process of spraying droplets of water on the finished ice.
The droplets freeze, forming tiny mounds or "pebbles" of ice that allow the large granite curling stones to slide across the surface of the ice sheet with a minimum of friction.
"We plan to be ready for the first round of practice Friday at 1 p.m.," Dressler said. "The first six games will begin at 9 a.m. Saturday."
Windows of the ice-sheet building, located just northwest of the Dee Events Center on the Weber State University campus, are being covered to help control lighting for television crews.
Also, scaffolding is being erected to provide a better off-the-ice vantage point for camera teams.
Highlights of the national round-robin curling competition will be aired on the Outdoor Life Network on April 1 and 3.
Meantime, some 200 volunteers are being groomed for a variety of tasks that will range from serving as officials and ice technicians to providing hospitality services, transportation and security.
Men's teams competing in the national contest are coming from Alaska, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota (three teams), Ohio, Washington and Wisconsin (three teams) plus Team USA.
For the women curlers, teams are coming from Alaska, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Washington and Wisconsin in addition to Team USA.
The rumble of Ogden's Taiko drummers and bagpiping by the Utah Pipe Band will echo across the ice Saturday at 12:30 p.m. as national-class curling athletes are introduced during opening ceremonies.
Some 6,000 students from six area school districts are expected to attend the daytime curling competition to learn more about the sport and generate some interest in the "Adopt-A-Country" program that will kick into gear during the 2001 World Junior Curling Championships.
That event will be held at the ice sheet in the spring of 2001.
The competition is under the direction of the U.S. Curling Association and is being jointly hosted by Weber County, Ogden, the Salt Lake Organizing Committee and the Ogden Curling Club.