Who We Are

What was once the youngest of the US Mens National Curling Team, has now become one of the youngest Top-10 teams in the world. We are one of three men’s teams on the US National Curling Team, a program that is supported and has close collaboration with the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee. Currently ranked No. 10 in the world, we are on a mission to become one of the premier mens teams in the world, qualify for the 2024 World Curling Championships, and prepare for the 2026 Men’s Olympic Team Trials. Follow along, and join Our Team as we embark on our journey to success! 

History

The majority of the “YoungBucks” began our journey together in 2013, forming as a squad for the last four years of our competitive junior careers. We secured two US Junior National Championships, concluding our successful junior careers with a silver medal finish at the 2016 World Junior Curling Championships.

Prior to entering our first year of men’s curling, our young crew split up. Howell and Dropkin went under the reign of Heath McCormick, and Fenner and Fenson followed in family footsteps by playing with Pete Fenson. The two-year split to play with experienced back-ends proved to be a great learning experience for this squads development.

In the summer of 2018, the four of us reunited to see what kind of noise we could make in men’s curling. As we climbed the ranks, our team of “YoungBucks” welcomed the addition of Joe Polo - “UncleBuck”. As an Olympic bronze medalist and fifth of the 2018 gold medal team, he brought a great level of maturity and experience to the team!

Along with finishing the 2019-2020 season ranked No. 14 on the World Curling Tour, we pulled off a win that made USA Curling history when we became the first men’s team to win a Grand Slam of Curling (GSOC) event. Our Tier 2 Tour Challenge Grand Slam win qualified us for the GSOC Meridian Canadian Open, where we qualified for playoffs and lost the quarterfinals.

Our team spiced up our success in 2021 by winning the US National Championships, which secured us a spot in the 2021 US Men’s Olympic Team Trials in Omaha, Nebraska. At the trials that November, we played our way into the Best-of-three Final, where we lost the third and final game to the reigning Olympic Gold medalists, Team Shuster.

Our win at the 2021 Nationals qualified us for the 2022 World Curling Championships that were held in Las Vegas, NV. In our first world championship, we finished the round-robin in fifth place with a 7-5 record, highlighted by a dominate 10-6 win over Canada in Draw 15. After topping Scotland 6-4 in the quarterfinals, we faced a rematch against Canada with a birth to the gold medal game on the line. Canada would ultimately secured the finals birth with an 8-5 win, sending us to play for the bronze - a game that Italy dominated from the start, ending our week with a fourth place finish.

The team took new shape after the departures of Polo and Fenson in the summer of 2022, which lead way to Andrew Stopera joining the YoungBucks for the 22/23 season. That year was highlighted by a semi-final finish at the GSOC Boost National, a bronze medal at the inaugural Pan-Continental Curling Championships, and capturing our second GSOC Tour Challenge Tier II title, becoming the first team to ever repeat as winners. We finished the season ranked tenth in the World Curling Rankings and look forward to unlocking new levels of achievement in our sport.