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