Michael Shalhoub, Age: 59
Partner, Goldberg Segalla
Shalhoub was on a ski trip in Canada when he first saw a game of curling on TV. “I was fascinated,” the lawyer remembers. When he got home to Eastchester, N.Y., he and his wife, Gail, joined the Ardsley Curling Club. He was in his mid-40s and reaching an age where he couldn’t play his preferred sport of basketball anymore. “I like being part of a team sport,” Shalhoub says. And despite its seemingly glacial pace, curling is a physically demanding sport: “It’s a real aerobic workout,” he says. “Sweeping the rock from one end to the other is like interval training.” Shalhoub has bonded with his teammates and traveled the world playing in international tournaments. “We’ve been to Iceland to curl—we’ve gotten out and about to places we wouldn’t otherwise have visited.”
GETTING IN THE GAME: Most curling clubs have programs to introduce people to the game, says Shalhoub, who is ethics chair for the U.S. Curling Association. For equipment, he favors BalancePlus brooms, gloves and specialized shoes; one shoe has a rubber sole that lets you safely run and walk on ice, the other has a Teflon sole that allows for an elegant slide.
