Curling a family tradition for Burchesky family
The Burchesky family, front from left, Michael, Anne and Natalie. Back, from left, Bonnie, Steve, sister Carole Burchesky Starr and friend Gary Vineyard in December 2014. It was the last time Anne was on the Pittsburgh ice.
When Michael Burchesky was about six years old, he sat on the ice of the Utica (N.Y.) Curling Club, watching his parents curl, while his grandparents played their own game nearby.
It’s one of his earliest memories of a sport that has had a big presence in his life ever since.
A 2013 Canon-McMillan graduate, 21-year-old Michael Burchesky now curls at the club level for Hamilton College. His school rink is Utica Curling Club. Pictures of his grandparents, both past presidents of the organization, line the walls. Their names are engraved on some of the stones still used there today.
“When I think of curling, I think of family,” Michael Burchesky said. “We were a curling family.”
Still are.
The activity has taken on a hereditary quality for the entire Burchesky clan, relatives included, since 1951. That was when an acquaintance of Bob Burchesky, Michael’s grandfather, invited the young dentist to come to the Utica Curling Club and learn the game. Bob and his wife, Anne, went and fell in love with the sport.
They taught each of their four children to curl in the following years. Most of them have taught their offspring.
A team made up of extended family members, spanning four generations and almost nine decades in age, competed in the Pittsburgh Curling Club’s 11th annual TropiCurl Summer Bonspiel, held at the RMU Island Sports Center June 30.
Former Canonsburg resident Anne Burchesky threw the foursome’s first stone. Joining the wheelchair-bound 96-year-old on the ice was her son Doug, daughter-in-law Jenna, nine-year-old great-granddaughter, Noa Burchesky, granddaughter Jenna Burchesky, and grandson Sean Burchesky, all from out-of-state.
“It was really exciting to be out there,” Jenna Burchesky said. “And to think how crazy it is that we could get such a wide range of age all on one team.”
The idea to put together this four-generation outfit, occurred to Doug after he and other family members, including his oldest son, Kyle, traveled to Scotland, curling’s birthplace, in the early 1990s for a tournament. There they competed as a three-generation team.
“That seemed to be a big deal out there,” Doug said. “All these years, I kept thinking ‘Maybe someday we can pull it off where we put a four-generation team out on the ice.'”
According to Michael’s father, Steve Burchesky, a co-founder of the Pittsburgh Curling Club, this year was the first time a team consisting of four generations of the same family competed in the Tropicurl.
The foursome that competed last month failed to win the tournament’s A or B bracket, losing two games and winning one, but their appearance in the 24-team field wasn’t a one-off stunt.
In 2013, a two-generation Burchesky team competed in the Tropicurl and won the event.
Jenna Burchesky is an accomplished curler with Olympic aspirations. Earlier this year, the 18-year-old won the Wisconsin junior championship and also placed third at the 2016 national championships. A year ago, she took silver at nationals.
Her father, Doug Burchesky, founded an outdoor curling club, New Pond Curling Club, in Walpole, Mass. When weather allows, the body of water behind the family home serves as a playing surface.
While neither Natalie Burchesky or her brother Michael, took part in the recent Tropicurl, she said even though she hasn’t played in a few years, she could still throw a couple good rocks, if called upon.
“My family’s been doing it, so I just did it,” Natalie Burchesky, a 2015 Canon-McMillan graduate, said.”It’s like riding a bike.”
When the siblings were growing up, their family spent countless winter Saturday nights at the Pittsburgh Curling Club’s late draws. Steve Burchesky, a 68-year-old Canonsburg resident, said the foursome made up of him, his wife Bonnie and their two children, was the first full-family team in the Pittsburgh Curling Club’s 10-plus year history.
“It wasn’t like we were playing for a national title or curling to get a spot on the Olympic team,” Natalie said. “It was a family fun activity that we did.”