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

