Matt Hamilton knows time is short. The Olympics are over and people are starting to forget just how much they enjoyed watching some of the non-traditional sports over the last month or so. As a curler, he understands how important it is to capitalize on the Olympics as a chance to grow the sport.
This very website didn’t rank curling too highly on the list of Olympic sports that were very watchable during the Olympics, but that was before America met Hamilton and the U.S. men’s curling team. The curler became a bit of a meme during the mixed doubles curling competition, in which he partnered with his sister, Becca.
Then the men’s team made the greatest run in American curling history, winning the gold for the first time ever. The team was charming the entire way, Hamilton the goofy foil as the team’s second while skip John Shuster finally broke through the pressure to win it all. Receiving the wrong medals when they won it all only made them more likable. But the next four years are important for curling’s future in America, and Hamilton and the now-defending gold medalists know they have to make the most of their time in the sporting spotlight.
Hamilton had just landed in Madison, Wisconsin, when he spoke to Uproxx about the team’s monumental win in Pyeongchang, what he does off the ice to train, and how his job allows him to stay in peak curling form.
You guys have been all over the place the last month or so. I saw you were at an NHL outdoor event curling the opening face-off puck to center ice. Have you been doing a lot of press these days?
Yes and no. We had an event in Winnipeg last weekend and then had some other stuff on Sunday and Monday of last weekend in Minneapolis which was more press-related, so it’s a little blend of everything but definitely hasn’t slowed down much.
How was the weather up in Winnipeg this time of year? I know it can be extremely cold in winter.
It was probably the nicest I’ve ever seen Winnipeg as far as temperature-wise. When I got off the plane here in Wisconsin it was colder here. So I got a nice little warm stretch when I was up there.
I’ve always wanted to get up there but I think if I’m going I’d pick sometime in the summer.
Well, yeah. If I was going to recommend anything, I’d say go to Winnipeg and then go another hour north to a place called Gimli. That’s where Crown Royal is made. And it’s also an amazing destination, it’s right on Lake Winnipeg, which is enormous. It’s a destination spot in the summer. It goes from about 40,000 people in the summer to about 4,000 people in winter.
So what’s the last month of your life been like? Did you expect this kind of publicity tour would come from winning gold?
Yeah, it’s been incredible. Got to do some things that I truly never thought I’d be able to do and got to experience some truly amazing things. Got to do some things that people dream about. So I’m really embracing it and loving the opportunity and just happy that I’ve had this chance.
This is such a big moment for curling in the US in general. But was there a sense of what it would mean for American curling if you did win gold?
I guess we talked and, I don’t want to say joked about what would happen if we won, but we made comments about winning gold and it’s pretty incredible. You know, you look back on the history and you see Canada won it a couple times and Switzerland. Norway won it a few times. You just can’t believe that you’re joining those ranks, you know?
We didn’t really think about what it would do because we weren’t 100 percent sure that it was going to happen. So after the fact and seeng the response and everything like that, it’s going to do an amazing thing for curling. It’s going to blow up, and we’re going to see curling clubs all across the country starting, which we really, really need.
Nontraditional sports in Olympic years try to make the most of the attention they get. Over the last decade that’s definitely happened for curling, even locally where I live in Buffalo, they started a curling club and now have their own facility. Watching a country as big as America fall in love with the sport, how rewarding has that been for you?
It’s amazing because I’ve loved this sport and I know how great it is. You try to convey it to people when they ask you about the things that you do in your life besides your normal job. It’s just really neat to see people see what I was doing on the ice and watching me play my craft and saying “Hey that looks like a lot of fun, I’m going to go sign up and try a Learn To Curl at the closest curling club to me.” Yeah, it’s pretty awesome.
Like most Olympians you have a day job. What exactly do you do and how much of it have you been doing lately?
(Laughs) As of late it hasn’t been a ton to be honest. But it’s been great. My day job is a research and development technician for Spectrum Brands. I’ve been doing it for about five years now and they’ve been nothing but supportive of me and letting me do this.
I’ve got some great supervisors one of them is a competitive curler himself and so they know how to schedule projects. If I’ve got a project that takes two days to get done, I’ve got two days in town, I can take it. But if it’s a week-long project and I’m only going to be in town four days, they pass it on to the next technician.
It’s a great relationship because I know what I need to have done so if it’s a two-day project and 3:30 rolls around and I want to go to the curling club to throw some stones or train or I want to go to the gym they’re totally OK with me taking off if I need to. I can get my projects done and I’m still going to be able to train the way I want to.
So if you have a curler for a boss, how much pressure was on you in the workplace to win in South Korea?
It’s funny because we actually played each other in the Olympic trials and we played each other a few times last few years at the U.S. Nationals. That’s kind of an interesting dynamic. I’m glad he’s one of my best buds as well as my supervisor.
The pressure? He was super confident we could do well. We actually went to a World Championship in 2016 and took him along as an alternate so he knew how good we can be. That was the year we actually got bronze at the world championship. So he’s seen our potential, we just haven’t really fulfilled it.
You were quoted as saying you wouldn’t have minded having more time off competing. And you’ve certainly done a lot of promotional work and publicity. What does the next few years look like for you as far as competing?
I have one more tournament this year and four more years of tournaments to get ready for the next Olympics. There’s no doubt that I’m going to give it another run and see what I can do.
Having the national curling organization get involved is important for curling’s future in America. But how important is it that curling grows at a grassroots level where people just see the sport and want to get involved on their own?
It’s all about people who are curious and want to do it on their own. They want to go out and experience it for themselves. I know for me I had to go out and, at first, I didn’t think it was a good sport. I didn’t really want to play it. I was in about seventh grade so 12, 13 years old.
Then I went out and tried it and fell in love with the strategy aspect of it. The fact that you can win games by being smarter than your opponent as well as being better. It’s just pretty unbelievable, and it’s been a real blast to be a part of.
What’s the craziest thing that you’ve had happen because of winning gold. Was it the bobblehead?
Yeah, that’s, I mean. That’s pretty amazing. You see those at sporting events and they’re usually of famous people and you think “Do people think I’m a famous person? Am I a famous person?”
That’s pretty awesome. But just the things we’ve gotten to do. Between dropping pucks at [hockey] games, we went to the Timberwolves game. Being on Fallon. Being in the public eye. It’s all been fun. I’m into it. It’s hard to pick just one.
People compared you online to Mario when you were playing mixed doubles. Did you get a sense that you were becoming a meme on social media or was there so much going on that you didn’t notice?
Yeah, I watched my social media following spike dramatically so I had a feeling that people were watching and getting into everything that was going on, which was amazing. So, yeah, I wasn’t fully sure of why it was all happening. I’m just a goofball from McFarland who just happens to curl. But people have really taken to it, and it’s great. I like that sort of attention and it doesn’t bother me too much and I can still be myself and do my thing.
I think it might have even taken a little attention away from Shuster, which probably wasn’t a bad thing because all the attention he gets isn’t always positive.
I wanted to ask about that. In curling it seems like it’s just like any team. There’s a leader, then a joker, and on and on. Shuster seems like a very serious guy at the rink, and you’re definitely the jokester on the team. How important is embracing that role in big tournaments when there is pressure on the team? Because there’s certainly been a lot of pressure on Shuster to come through the last few Olympics.
Oh, for sure. It’s very important to have these kinds of roles and we all know what our roles are on the team and we embrace them. John’s role is definitely the architect of the ends of the game. We’ve all got our roles. I’m kind of the comic relief like you kind of said. I’m the fun guy. And it’s quite the dynamic we have as a squad.
I saw that Adam Rippon was asked which Olympians were the most ready to party in the Olympic village and he said the curlers. How much of that are you willing to take credit for?
I talked to Adam quite a bit. He’s a class act. An awesome dude. Doesn’t surprise me he said that. But he didn’t go very far out on a limb.
What’s one thing that you’d want people to know about curling that they might not be able to see with just a few weeks every four years?
There’s a lot more technique than you’d image that goes into it. There’s a lot more strength and conditioning than people see. The time that people put into it. Some of these other sports, not to take anything away from them, but some of these women are track stars that are just, man, super fast, and wanted a winter sport. And sometimes that speed can translate into bobsled.
Curling is pretty specialized and you don’t understand everything even after playing a ton of games three or four years. It would be hard-pressed that anyone could pick up curling and be an Olympian in four years. It takes more time than that, in my opinion. Some people are gifted, it could happen. But, like, Lolo Jones a couple years ago went from track and field right into bobsled because she’s a stud athlete. I think some of these sports transition like that.
As someone who has curled only a few times and done very poorly, I think a lot of people don’t realize what a lower-body workout it is. On the ice it’s so much training shooting and learning ice conditions. But off the ice, what kind of training do you do?
Lots and lots of interval training. Lots of stretching. The interval training is just so crucial for sweeping and then you recover and sweep again. Or you sweep as hard as you can and then end up 45 seconds and you’re going to have to throw a stone. So you’re going to have to bring your heart rate down, center yourself, focus, and make a shot. It’s extremely important that you are able to recover from high-intensity sweeping so we do high-intensity workouts with short breaks. It seems to benefit us as far as controlling the heart and the breathing.
Would a Grand Slam event in the U.S. be successful? I know that’s something a few people have debated as the next step for curling in America.
Yes, something like that. I think there’s rumors of another series, a more worldwide series called a Grand Prix and I think the U.S. is going to pick up one of those events. And just televising those slams is going to be big too. Just keeping those events in the public eye is going to be really important to growing it.
With hockey and curling, culturally, they’re very Canadian sports on this continent. What does curling in the US have to do to separate itself from our northern neighbors?
We’ve already kind of veered away from what Canada is doing because they have so many more people to draw from. That’s why we started our performance program, but there needs to be, we basically just need the youth to get into it. Because, like I said, I think it’s extremely unlikely that someone can do it in four years. We need to develop from juniors to up until they’re playing men’s where they get to have these experiences on the ice and see different shots and angles and see what can go wrong and what can go right. It sounds cliche, but the future’s in the kids and that’s where curling is going to grow.
