Two Seattle curlers prepare to throw rocks for gold at Italian Olympics

When the Winter Olympics kick off in February, two Seattle curlers will be part of the U.S. team in Italy, throwing, sweeping, and yelling for an epic upset.

Luc Violette and Ben Richardson are part of Team Casper, which won the right earlier this month to represent the U.S. at the upcoming Olympics in northern Italy.

The duo refined their rock-throwing and ice-sweeping techniques at the Granite Curling Club of Seattle. They have been teammates for the last decade, which they say gives them a distinct advantage.

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“Ben’s seen me throw the vast majority of the rocks I’ve thrown in my career and vice versa,” Violette said while speaking with KUOW's Seattle Now. “When you have that instinct for it, it helps you be able to read the rock and sweep. There’s a lot of value there.”

Violette said the 500-year-old sport of curling is known for the furious sweeping of the ice, but what is less recognized is the level of communication that goes on between teammates as they shout out directions for where and how to sweep as the 42-pound stone slides toward the target, hopefully bouncing opponent’s stones out of the way in the process.

“I'd say curling is known for the brooms, the sweeping the ice,” Violette said. “Probably the third most thing it's known for is the yelling.”

Unlike other sports, curlers don't hide their strategy from opponents. They are mic'd up, talking strategy with teammates, and shouting out instructions as the sweepers guide the rock along the ideal path.

While Violette grew up curling, Richardson came to the sport as a teenager. His grandmother, who had been a curler in Saskatchewan, heard about Seattle’s Granite Club and suggested that Richardson’s mother take him there to give it a try.

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“Literally, from the first time I stepped out on the ice, the experience there was amazing,” Richardson said. “The instructor who was teaching us made me feel like I knew what I was doing.”

Eventually, Luc’s dad Tom Violette became Richardson’s coach.

“Luke had been curling for a little while at that point, so he was a good idol to kind of look up to,” he said. “Then his dad became my coach and taught me everything he knew. They just really accepted me, and everyone there did, every junior that played with us, all the instructors, every member there just completely embraced me as a new curler.”

Richardson remembers being in college and watching Team USA shock the world and win its first and only gold medal in curling during the 2018 Olympics in South Korea.

“I was staying up in my dorm room at like 3 a.m. watching the gold medal match,” he said. “I probably woke up every single person on my dorm level because I was screaming. I was so excited.”

Now, he and Violette hope to recreate that magical moment at the 2026 games in Cortina d’Ampezzo, a ski resort in northern Italy near the Austrian border.

Their team is ranked sixth in the world, which is the highest an American squad has ever been ranked for curling. The favorite heading into the Olympics is Scotland’s Team Bruce Mouat, followed by teams from Switzerland and Canada.

Richardson and Violette said they are both grateful and excited about the opportunity to compete against elite teams on the world stage.

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“We’ll have to bring our best, but we’re ready and I feel like there’s not that much pressure on us,” Richardson said. “We’re just there to have fun, do our best, and see what happens.”

The men’s Olympic curling competition starts Feb. 11.