Erin Hueffner
Craig Brown, son of Steve's proprietor Steve Brown, holds a curling broom, the key to all that ice action.
Steve Brown loves being on the ice. He grew up just steps away from a curling club in Galesville, Wisconsin. After moving to Madison 43 years ago, Steve was curling with the Madison Curling Club and coaching his daughter, Erica, for the Calgary Olympics. He then started selling supplies out of his basement to members of the Madison Curling Club — all while working another job.
What began as a hobby quickly turned full-time. “My employer said, you can keep working here and quit curling, or you can quit working here and keep curling. So I went with my heart, and I went with the sport,” says Steve.
Steve shared his love of curling with his children; his son, Craig, was a member of the 2014 U.S. Olympic Curling Team, and his daughter represented Team USA at three Olympic Games. The Brown family has also coached at the Olympics and World Championships.
The shop sells equipment like gloves (left) and gifts like a carved wood curling stone.
Today, the business he started, Steve’s Curling Supplies, is one of the largest curling equipment sellers in the country, out of a handful of such shops. In 2010, the business moved into a warehouse on Pflaum Road. Son Craig bought the business in 2012, but he’s worked there most of his life. “When I was a kid, dad would pay me to put stickers on the brooms,” says Craig.
Curling is a winter sport that traces its roots back to Scotland. The goal is to slide stones across a sheet of ice toward a target. To play, a curler needs a broom, a stone and special sliding curling shoes. The shoes are Craig’s biggest seller; they typically run between $100 and $400. “We sell the same stuff that you’ll see the Olympic team using, but we also sell the very intro-level gear,” says Craig.
Steve’s Curling Supplies does most of its business by mail-order, but the Pflaum Road location has a showroom for players who want to see gear in person. (The three McFarlanders heading to this winter’s Olympics are current customers.)
Colorful curling brooms, brush heads, shoes, gloves, stopwatches and other gear line the walls. There are curling-themed gifts, too — many curling stone-shaped items from stress balls ($3) to ice buckets ($36) to decorative inlaid wooden curling stones ($345). On special request, Craig also sells a variety of real granite curling stones. Weighing 40 pounds each, they all come from Ailsa Craig, an island off the coast of Scotland.
Look up, and you’ll find a banner from the 2014 Sochi Olympics, along with a glass case that houses Craig’s Team USA sweater from the Sochi opening ceremony. He says the experience of being an Olympian, and walking through the tunnel into the stadium for the opening ceremony, was something he can’t put into words. “You walk out into the lights, and you hear the cheering and see the cameras flashing — it’s something I’ll remember forever.”
Steve’s Curling Supplies
4926 Pflaum Road, 800-227-2875, stevescurling.com, 9 am-5 pm Mon.-Fri. and by appointment.
Editor's note: This story has been edited to correct the caption in the photo. It is Craig Brown in the photo, not Steve, as originally written.
