FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 16, 2005

Iron Range curlers headed to Olympic Trials for Curling

(STEVENS POINT, Wis.) – Chisholm’s Shawn Rojeski and John Shuster are headed for the 2006 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Curling.

Rojeski, 33, and Shuster, 22, are teammates on Pete Fenson’s Bemidji-based rink and will compete against nine other men’s teams at the Olympic Trials Feb. 19-26 at the Madison Curling Club in McFarland, Wis. The team qualified for the Trials after finishing 6-2 at the Men’s Qualifying Round in Mankato, Minn., last month.

The Fenson rink won the 2003 Nationals and finished second at last year’s event. A slight change in personnel occurred this year with Joe Polo (Cass Lake, Minn.) joining the team at the second position. The team played well on the World Curling Tour, finishing as the top American team in the field this season, and has secured the No. 1 ranking at the Olympic Trials. The team won the Korbel International Cashspiel in October in Madison and placed in the quarterfinals or semifinals of three other Tour events.

Rojeski, a manufacturing engineer with Reptron Manufacturing Services, began curling at age 12 after watching his parents and other relatives curl. Rogeski is a two-time junior national champion and has competed at the men’s world championships twice, most recently in 2003 and in 1998 as an alternate.

Shuster, a student at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, didn’t start curling until age 15 when he decided to stop playing basketball competitively. He led his team to the junior national title in 2004 after finishing second at the event in 2002.

The 2006 U.S. Olympic Team Trials also will serve as the World Trials to choose the USA’s entrants at the 2005 Ford World Curling Championships. Ten men’s and 10 women’s team will take part in a round robin. The top four teams will advance to the semifinals on Feb. 25. The Page Playoff System will be used to determine the finalists. The No. 1 ranked team will play the No. 2 ranked team. The winner advances to the final while the loser advances to play the winner of the No. 3 vs. No. 4 ranked teams to determine the second finalist. The men’s and women’s finals will take place Feb. 26.

Highlights from the 2006 U.S. Olympic Trials will be aired on the College Sports Television Network at a date to be announced soon.

Curling became a full-medal sport at the 1998 Olympic Winter Games in Nagano, Japan. The 2006 Olympic Games will take place Feb. 10-26, 2006. The 2010 Olympics will be held in Vancouver, British Columbia.

USA Curling is sponsored by AIT Worldwide Logistics and AmerAust Technologies as well as by General Motors, Chevron-Texaco and Bank of America through a joint marketing program with the U.S. Olympic Committee.

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For more information: Rick Patzke, USA Curling, rickp@curlingrocks.net, 715-344-1199