ADAMS TWP — The arena that will serve as the home base for the Pittsburgh Curling Club is sweeping into the Myoma area.

Club President Steve Buffington said Thursday that the two acres for the specialized ice arena is on Myoma Road near the railroad tracks owned by ESM. He hopes groundbreaking will occur next summer, and that the facility will open in the fall. He said the land was donated by a club member whose name he did not reveal. The approximate cost for the facility, which will be a curling-only ice arena, will be $1.2 million.

Buffington said the donation of land, a chiller to freeze the ice and other equipment donated by clubs that are upgrading their equipment, corporate sponsorships, and a bank loan will leave the club in need of about $400,000, which Buffington hopes to fund through memberships, grants and possible foundation bequests.

Curling is a winter sport, included in the Winter Olympics, in which two four-person teams slide smooth, heavy stones toward the center of a circle at either end of a length of ice.

Members of the Pittsburgh Curling Club currently practice and compete at the Robert Morris University Island Sports Center on Neville Island, Allegheny County. But that would switch to the new arena in Adams next year.

“We're very excited about the new facility,” Buffington said.

He said curling ice is prepared differently than hockey ice so a facility dedicated solely to the Canadian sport will provide an optimum surface for curling.

He said the club's information booth at Adams Township Community Day last month drew people interested in the sport.

Buffington hopes residents take an interest in the sport, and he envisions multiple curling leagues using the new Adams facility. He hopes high school teams and university aged member teams will use it.

The Philadelphia Curling Club's facility hosts high school teams and teams that compete on the national level, he said.

“That's sort of the model program for the curling clubs here in the northeast,” Buffington said.

One of the handful of curlers from Butler County is Mac Purvis Jr. of Mars, who helped found the Pittsburgh Curling Club and is a past club president.

Purvis said he was aware of the sport, but learned much more about it in 1998 during a trip to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls.

“It was during the Olympics and Canadian TV had wall-to-wall coverage of the Canadian curlers,” Purvis recalled.

Once he returned to Mars, Purvis called the U.S. Curling Association to see if a club existed in Pittsburgh. Learning there wasn't, he subscribed to the national club's newsletter.

Then in 2002, a former Saskatchewan resident who had curled since junior high school joined Purvis' Rotary Club. The two men contacted the U.S. Curling Association and got information about others who had also inquired about a Pittsburgh club.

“We got together and put together a club,” Purvis said. “There were 12 members initially. Now there are 120.”

Purvis said curling appeals to him because every shot requires strategy, much like golf or chess.

“It's trying to do something precise on an imprecise surface, sort of like putting,” Purvis said.

He said the sport also requires more physical activity than the casual observer would expect as players must vigorously sweep the ice surface as the “rock” inches down the ice. Players must also walk the 140-foot length of the ice about 50 times during play.

“You do end up putting on some mileage,” Purvis said.

Another draw is that anyone can play the sport, and men and women can play on the same team and compete against one another, Purvis said.

The Pittsburgh Curling Club members play each other on teams in an interclub league since the closest curling facility is in Cleveland. At the end of the season, which runs from October to March, the best teams make the playoffs and advance to a championship round.

He said “bonspiels,” or tournaments, are held in facilities across the northeastern United States, which many club members participate in on weekends.

“Our club holds one of the largest bonspiels in North America around the Fourth of July,” Purvis said.

He said 48 teams from the U.S. and Canada converge on the RMU Island Sports Center each July for the annual bonspiel, which is the club's largest fundraiser of the year. The bonspiel will be at the Adams facility when it is open. Visit www.pittsburghcurlingclub.com for more information.