Eighteen months ago, the captain of one of the top men’s curling teams in the United States was recovering from a debilitating autoimmune disease.
Danny Casper and his teammates began auditioning potential replacements who could take his place when he felt too weak to slide a 44-pound block of granite across the narrow ice.
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They need a shrewd tactician, an aggressive competitor, someone with national and international experience who is not yet planning to join another team for the 2024-25 season. They found all of these qualities and more in a 54-year-old personal injury attorney from Brooklyn Park, Minnesota.
Rich Ruohonen is withdrawing from the Curling Classic in 2022 after narrowly missing out on his sixth attempt to qualify for the Winter Olympics. He planned to play a few tournaments with friends and focus on the Senior Tour before a request from the Casper team helped bring him out of semi-retirement.
What was supposed to be a short-term partnership turned into something more after Rohonen excelled as an alternate captain last season and developed instant chemistry with four teammates no more than half his age. Kasper invited Rohonen to stay as a substitute – or fifth player – even though the 24-year-old had regained his strength and was no longer needed as a regular substitute.
Rich Ruohonen tried and failed six times to make the Olympic team. Now, at age 54, he finally gets his chance. (Photo by David Burdine/Getty Images)
(David Belding via Getty Images)
Earlier this winter, the Casper team helped Ruohonen escape more than two decades of Olympic trials frustration and qualify for the 2026 Winter Olympics. Casper overcame a team skipped by five-time Olympian John Shuster in a tight best-of-three final at the U.S. Olympic Trials and proved it again three weeks later with a dominant performance at the Last Chance Global Qualifiers.
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“I’m excited to finally be competing in the Olympics,” Ruhonen told Yahoo Sports. “I’ve been this close many times. I’ve been the favorite and the underdog. When I thought it was over for me, to be able to do it now is an extraordinary experience.”
If Rohonen competes in Cortina, he will become the oldest American to compete in the Winter Olympics. Only two other Americans have competed over the age of 50, said Bill Mallon, co-founder of the International Society of Olympic Historians and author of more than a dozen Olympics-related books.
The two were joined by Joseph Savage, 52, who finished seventh in the pairs figure skating competition at the 1932 Lake Placid Olympics. Sixteen years later, at the age of 51, Mac MacCarthy competed in the steel frame competition at the 1948 Olympic Games in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
Two decades ago, another U.S. men’s curling reserve could have put his name in the history books, but Scott Baird, 54 years Rohonen’s junior, didn’t see action at the 2006 Games in Turin. Ruohonen is optimistic that Casper and the rest of his teammates will find an opportunity for him to play in the fortnight in Cortina.
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“I’m sure they’re going to try to make it happen,” Rohonen said. “I have a really good feeling. That’s what I want. I want them to stay healthy and I want them to win games, but I’m not going to lie. I want to get a stone or two.”
Four of his other Casper teammates were born more than a decade before Rohonen started curling. Rohonen inherited the sport from his father after he moved to the Twin Cities area to live with him when he was in fifth grade. By his late teens, Rohonen had grown into an elite junior curler.
Although Rohonen took a brief hiatus from curling during law school, he couldn’t stay away for long. He juggled his legal career with his curling ambitions, waking up at 5:30 every morning for pre-dawn training and saving time on vacation to compete in prestigious national or international tournaments.
“When I started working in the 1990s, you were expected to get there before your boss arrived and leave after he left,” Rohonen said. “I would work my ass off in the summer with little downtime. I would save that for the winter and fall, when I would play curling.”
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While many elite curlers retire in their 30s, Rohonen, a late bloomer, began to peak at this age. His team won the 2008 U.S. Championship and overtook another team to win the 2018 National Championship. On six other occasions, Rohonen’s team finished second.
Coming up empty-handed at the 2022 U.S. Olympic Trials was one of the most painful near misses of Rohonen’s career. The men’s team that Ruohonen skipped finished third, behind the team led by Shuster and Korey Dropkin. In the mixed doubles, Rohonen and Jamie Sinclair lost on the last stroke of the final.
For Rohonen, these setbacks marked the end of his hopes of making it to the sport’s biggest stage. His men’s team disbanded with his blessing. He didn’t bother trying to form a new one.
“I thought no one wanted someone over 50 on their team,” Ruhonen said. “I’ll be 54 by the time of the next Olympic trials. I almost thought it was over.”
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At the time, Rohonen could not have predicted that Casper would be battling Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare disease in which the body’s immune system attacks its nerves. He had no idea that even while undergoing treatment, Casper would still have trouble tying his own shoes or opening a bag of potato chips.
“Rich is awesome,” Casper told Yahoo Sports. “We were looking for a guy who could take over the game. We were like, this guy is as present as anybody, he’s super smart and we really enjoyed hearing what he had to say. We were excited about the idea of learning a thing or two from him.”
Rich Ruohonen, Aidan Oldenburg, Luc Violette, Daniel Casper and Benjamin Richardson attend the 2026 Team USA Welcome Experience at the Milan-Cortina Olympic Games on February 4, 2026 in Milan, Italy. (Joe Scarnici/Getty Images)
(Joe Scarnici via Getty Images)
For Ruohonen, the most challenging but also most rewarding part of joining the Casper team is having teammates who want it as much as he does. Kasper, Ruhonen, 26-year-old Luc Violet, 24-year-old Aidan Oldenburg and 27-year-old Ben Richardson prepare for the new season by training regularly before dawn, going to work and then getting together to throw stones and get ready for the season.
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“They wore me out,” Rohonen said. “Sometimes I’m sore or have a little limp, but it’s worth every second. I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
Ruohonen’s sense of humor in trying to keep up with the times doesn’t go unnoticed by Ruohonen. He jokingly calls his teammates “his kids” and describes himself as a “Scoutmaster with a bunch of Boy Scouts.” They constantly mock him for his outdated music taste or that he grew up in an era before smartphones and Wi-Fi.
“They’d say, ‘Oh, did they have color TV back then?'” Johonen said with a laugh. “They always give me a hard time because I’m old and forget things, but I love it. I know they love me when they give me crap.”
Casper added: “We joke that he’s the least mature guy on the team. Richie is really good at bringing everyone together and making everyone laugh.”
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While Rohonen is eager to compete in Cortina and claim the title of oldest American to compete in the Winter Olympics, he knows he likely won’t be on the ice for long, barring an injury. His greatest contribution may have been as a tactician scouting opponents and advising on game plans and game strategies.
After the Olympics, will Rohonen return to semi-retirement? He said, not necessarily.
“I told my teammates, if we win, you might get four more years,” he said. “They’d say, ‘Please, no! We’re going to put you in a nursing home and send you away.'”
