The Frogtown Curling Club as it exists today sprang from the St. Paul Curling Club (SPCC).
The Very Beginning
SPCC organized and operated the first year of curling at the Ramsey County owned Biff Adams Ice Arena from January-March 2011 with around 100 members. From that humble beginning the Frogtown Curling Club was officially formed in the fall 2011. With more than 150 charter members Frogtown became the second dedicated ice curling club in the Twin Cities that season.
In March of 2012 the inaugural club bonspiel, The Frogtown Bonspiel, was held. And in the summer of 2012, the first significant renovations were made to help turn the Biff Adams Ice Arena into a curling facility. Each summer from 2012 to 2016 significant changes and upgrades have been made to the club room, ice plant and arena areas of the club.
October 2013 saw Frogtown host its first open bonspiel with the Spiel of the Dead. The Spiel of the Dead has grown into one of the top Halloween bonspiels in the area with teams coming to Frogtown from across the state. In January 2015 the Twin Cities Curling Association hosted the first annual Big Spiel with 96 teams from across the US curling at the Frogtown, St. Paul and Four Seasons Curling Clubs over a 4-day period.
The Middle Years
2016 was an important year for Frogtown as a new five year lease was signed with Ramsey County. Additionally, Frogtown started its’ fourth yearly bonspiel with the Polar Spiel. The Polar Spiel celebrates Frogtown’s unique curling environment where visitors and curlers alike get to see, hear and feel the “roar of the ice” during each and every game played at the club.
With the 2017-18 season Frogtown enters its seventh season and is approaching a membership of nearly 500 curlers. Facility improvements during the summer and fall of 2017 has doubled our heated club room space while also creating the Sheet E Lounge to provide near the ice viewing areas for visitors who want to see the action up close.
With the USA winning the Olympic gold medal at the 2018 Pyongchang Olympics, interest in curling grew rapidly and membership in 2018-2019 increased to over 500 members with 13 leagues curling six days a week.
A Pandemic Year
The 2019-20 season started with the club continuing to grow in membership and hosting numerous bonspiels and other group events. Then in March 2020, the club, like most of the country, abruptly stopped operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the summer of 2020, the club worked diligently to develop a plan to bring back curling for the 2020-21 season. To provide a return to the ice, the club decided to reduce play to three sheets (playing on every other sheet), curling with masks, extensive cleaning of rocks and club equipment, reduced time in the clubhouse and eliminating bonspiels. Even with these changes the club hosted a successful season and was able to complete the entire season and crown a club champion in March 2021.
10 Years and Still Going...
The 2021-22 season marked the 10th Anniversary of the Frogtown Curling Club with a special 10th Aniversary Spiel in April of 2022.
We curled in 2022 and 2023 too. A new Tuesday daytime fun league was added. The Aurora Women's Spiel held it's inagural year. We had enough interest to start an 8pm Sunday League for new curlers (need confirm the year...) and Friday 8pm offered curling every other week. The Ice Out Spiel debuted building on the success of the Anniversary Spiel the year prior.
2023-24 is our biggest year yet with 685+ registered club members and every team spot filled in every league. The 1st Annual Pride Spiel happened. Our Sunday 8pm league became a full-fledged regular league and the Friday 8pm fun league filled.
We look forward to continuing the unique experience that the Frogtown Curling Club provides for our members and visitors and helping to grow curling in the Frogtown neighborhood, St. Paul and the greater Twin Cities, Minnesota and the USA.
We hope you can join us this year as a new member, a participant at one of our Spiels, a visitor at an event, or with a group, and enjoy the sport we all love at The Fun Club!
