In recent years, Briarcliff’s Bill Stopera has been focused more on his children’s curling success than his own. But in April, the lifelong curler proved he wasn’t done adding to his own resumé.
Stopera’s Team USA finished second at the World Senior Curling Championships in Östersund, Sweden. Team USA – comprising Stopera, Mike Farbelow, Rich Ruohonen, and Darren Lehto – won the Senior Men’s Nationals championship in Mapleton, Minnesota two months earlier and earned a spot to represent the US in Sweden at the tournament, open to players 50 years and older.
“It’s just a great experience to play against the best guys in the world,” Stopera, who began curling when he was eight years old, tells Inside Press. “I’ve been playing against a lot of the old legends of the game, guys that have won world championships.”
Team USA came a whisker away from the gold, losing to Canada on the final shot by Canadian Paul Flemming.
“It was an incredible shot the guy made and unfortunately we were on the losing end,” says Stopera. “It sucks to lose, but it was a great shot.”
Winning the silver at the senior world championships is just the latest feat in Stopera’s long curling career. Stopera, 56, started curling as a child when his family in Schenectady joined a local curling club as a social activity. A casual curler throughout his youth, he rediscovered the sport when he moved to Westchester in 1997 and began training at Ardsley Curling Club.
Stopera won the US curling championships in 2012, and the next year nearly qualified for a spot in the 2014 Winter Olympics.
While Stopera was facing off against some of the game’s former greats, he said the tournament had a friendly environment despite the tough competition.
“You’re playing against former guys that you watched on the internet,” Stopera, an insurance broker in his day job, says. “It was neat to watch them play, to play against them, and to be competitive.”
“You get to wear the USA on the back, so it’s always cool,” he adds.
Stopera is open to competing in the senior national and world tournaments again in the future, though he says the nearly two-week trip to Sweden was a grind.
Stopera has passed his love of curling onto his two children. Andrew, now 27, has been on the ice nearly since birth, and is aiming to qualify for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. Megan, an 18-year-old Briarcliff High School grad, took longer to embrace the sport but has also become a young star, winning the silver medal at the US Junior Curling Championships in April 2023.
“It still baffles my mind how fast she developed,” Bill Stopera told this magazine last year. “Once the switch flipped, Megan was ‘all in.’”
Despite his own recent success, Bill says his focus has been more on supporting the next generation of Stopera curlers than honing his own skills.
“They’ve got a lot of curling in front of them, so it’ll be more stress to deal with,” he notes.
