36 | OCTOBER 17 • 2019
quick hits
It was a good summer in the pool for
swimmer Jim Berk.
The 65-year-old West Bloomfield
resident finished fourth in the 200-
yard breaststroke (3:12.13) and 10th
in the 100 breaststroke (1:26.06) at
the National Senior Games in June in
Albuquerque, N.M..
He won a gold medal in the 200
breaststroke (3:13.12) and silver
medals in the 50 breaststroke (:38.33) and 100 breaststroke
(1:25.22) in the Michigan Senior Olympics in August at
Oakland University.
All were in the men’
s 65-69 age group.
While Berk doesn’
t believe the 5,000-foot elevation in
Albuquerque affected him, he’
s certain a three-hour delay at
Detroit Metropolitan Airport followed by a nine-hour layover at
O’
Hare International Airport in Chicago the day before the 100
breaststroke at the nationals slowed him down in that event.
It was Berk’
s third trip to the nationals. He went to
Minneapolis in 2015 and Birmingham, Ala., in 2017. He
earned a silver medal in the 100 breaststroke in Minneapolis in
the men’
s 60-64 age group.
BY STEVE STEIN
C
urling isn’
t synon-
ymous only with
cold-weather coun-
tries.
Israel has a national men’
s
curling team that has com-
peted in the middle group
of European countries since
2015.
The four men on the
team — who live in the U.S.
and Canada but also are
Israeli citizens — will be at
the Detroit Curling Club in
Ferndale this month to host
and compete in a tournament
that honors a philanthropic
area family.
The bonspiel and fund-
raiser for the Israel Curling
Federation will be
held Oct. 25-27.
Bonspiel is the
name for a curling
tournament. A
bonspiel normally
consists of several
games, held during
a weekend.
“There are lots of reasons
why our team is coming to
the Detroit area,” said team
member Simon Pack.
“We want to personally
thank the Farber family for
their longtime financial sup-
port of the Israel Curling
Federation (through the
David and Nanci Farber
Family Foundation and
Jeffrey Farber Family
Foundation) and also bring
attention to our team, the
federation and the sport.
“Hopefully people will stop
by and watch the tournament
and give curling a try them-
selves someday.”
The Israel team members
are a diverse group with a
common passion for curling.
Pack, who lives in New
York City, is a sports manage-
ment professor at St. John’
s
University.
His teammates are Alex
Pokras of Toronto, Aaron
Horowitz of Chicago and
Larry Sidney of Reno, Nev.
Pokras, the skip (team
captain), is in the computer
programming field. Horowitz,
the vice-skip, is employed by
Restaurant.com. Sidney is an
educator and personal trainer.
This is their second year
together. They went 3-4 last
year in the European Group
B Championships. Group B
contains 16 countries includ-
ing Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania,
Poland, Turkey and Wales.
Israel won a silver medal
in the European Group C
Championships in 2014,
which moved it up to Group
B the following year. Jeff
Lutz of Bloomfield Hills was
on the silver medal-winning
team.
With the 2019 Group B
Championships coming up
next month in Sweden, the
Israel team also will use the
sports HIGHlights
brought to you in partnership with
NMLS#2289
Warm Welcome
on the Ice
Israel’
s national men’
s curling team
hosts a tournament in Ferndale.
STEVE STEIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
LEFT: Israel national
men’
s curling team
skip Alex Pokras
delivers a stone
during the 2018
European Group B
Championships in
Austria.
continued on page 38
Freshman forward Josh Nodler was placed
on the Michigan State University hockey
team’
s top line during pre-season practice.
The Oak Park resident’
s line mates were
fellow freshman Jagger Joshua and senior
team captain Sam Saliba.
“We’
ll see how that looks, two freshmen
that high in the lineup, but we’
ve been happy
with them,” MSU coach Danton Cole told the
State News. “We had some offense we had
to replace with Taro (Hirose) leaving (to go to
the NHL), and I think those three guys will put
a dent in it.”
The Spartans are looking to improve on
last year’
s 12-19-5 record and last-place
finish in the Big Ten Conference.
Nodler, a Berkley High School grad, was
selected by the Calgary Flames in the fifth
round of the 2019 NHL draft.
Emory University junior wom-
en’
s tennis player Sasha
Hartje from Bloomfield
Hills won two matches but
lost in the semifinals of her
draw Sept. 13-15 at the
season-opening Elon Fall
Invitational in North Carolina.
The Detroit Country Day
School grad came into this
season with a 13-8 career record in singles and a
9-11 career record in doubles at Emory. She was
9-4 in singles last season.
There’
s still room for bowlers in the Downtown
Fox-MLZG B’
nai B’
rith league that bowls Tuesday
nights at Hartfield Lanes in Berkley.
Bowling will continue through Dec. 17 and
resume Jan. 7-March 24. Three weeks of playoffs
are March 31-April 14.
For information, contact league president Justin
Kaplan at (248) 672-0818 or justin-kaplan@
comcast.net.
CONTRIBUTED
CONTRIBUTED
ISRAEL CURLING FEDERATION