It was 60 years ago that George Skelly moved to Roseville and joined the St. Paul Curling Club. He relocated from Winnipeg, Manitoba, to attend radiology school and was determined to continue the sports he grew up playing.
“He was a great athlete,” said his daughter, Gaye Skelly-Peterson. That’s Gaye as in “Jay,” the way former Toronto Maple Leafs winger player James Gaye Stewart pronounced it.
United States’ skip Tabitha Peterson calls the sweep during a match against Japan at the World Women’s Curling Championship in Uijeongbu, South Korea, Tuesday, March 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Yes, Gaye is named after Stewart.
Skelly was a good curler and won the St. Paul Winter Carnival Curling Championship three times. His daughter became a good curler, as well, later matching her father’s feat by winning the Winter Carnival bonspiel in 2002, 2003 and 2004.
The accomplishments of Skelly, 96, and daughter Gaye, 67, remain etched in St. Paul curling annals, but their feats have been eclipsed somewhat by the family’s next generation.
Tara Peterson and Tabitha Peterson, daughters of Gaye and Sheldon Peterson, are in Cortina D’Ampezza, Italy, for another shot at an Olympic medal. Team Peterson, skipped by Tabatha, begins competition Thursday against South Korea and Sweden.
All told, it’s a pretty good athletic legacy for a cardiovascular surgeon.
“Yeah,” Tabitha said, “we wouldn’t be here today if (our grandfather) didn’t curl, for sure.”
Tabitha, 36 has skipped her own team since 2019, with Tara, 34, at second. This year’s team also includes lead Taylor Anderson-Heide, third Cory Thiesse and alternate Aileen Geving. Thiesse on Tuesday won a silver medal with partner Korey Dropkin in mixed doubles, becoming the first American woman to win an Olympic curling medal.
This is the third Olympics appearance for Tabitha and second for Tara. Between them, they have four junior national titles — sharing two — and Team Peterson won a bronze medal at the 2021 World Championships. Tabitha won a mixed doubles bronze in 2016 with partner Joe Polo.
United States’ Tara Peterson releases the stone during a match against Canada at the World Women’s Curling Championship in Uijeongbu, South Korea, Tuesday, March 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
But the U.S. women have yet to medal at the Olympics. Tabitha was part of the 2018 team that finished eighth in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and Team Peterson finished sixth at the 2022 Beijing Games.
Tara and Tabitha Peterson grew up in Burnsville and began curling at the SPCC before moving on to the national junior program and ultimately, USA Curling. After aging out of juniors, Tabitha said, she assumed she’d go to school, get a job and curl for fun.
And she did most of that, attending the University of Minnesota and becoming a hospital pharmacist. But Tabitha was asked to join the U.S. national team following the Vancouver Olympics in 2010.
“Lucky,” she said. Accepting was a “no-brainer.”
“They were all 10, 15 years older than I was, but they really made me feel part of the team, and I learned a ton from them,” Tabitha said.
It was then Peterson realized she could “make it far in this sport if I keep practicing and striving. Then I joined the USA Curling high-performance program, and I think things have elevated since then. They had all the resources that were not available to me as a junior, and I’ve learned even more in the last four years than I learned in the first four.”
Tabitha and Tara, a dentist with a White Bear Lake practice, both live in Eagan. They have been training and competing around their jobs — and, they note, the help of work colleagues — for a long time. New this time is the fact that the sisters each became mothers over the past two years, which raises the inevitable questions about how long they might continue to compete internationally.
Tabitha, in fact, said she had been thinking about it after Pyeongchang.
“We wanted to both grow families, too,” she said. “Even after 2018, I was thinking, ‘Was this enough? Am I satisfied with my career? Am I done? Do I want to go back and try to medal?
George “Doc” Skelly, right, curls at the St. Paul Curling Club in 1978. (Courtesy the Skelly-Peterson Family).
“Then at the end of Beijing (in 2022), I was sitting at the curling ceremonies and they showed a promo for the next Olympics, and it was Italy. And I was like, ‘Oh, my God, we’ve got to keep going.’ ”
For the Petersons, it’s only natural, and not just for the Olympians. Gaye and Sheldon are in Italy, just as they were in Beijing in 2022, and Sioux Falls for the U.S. trials in November and in British Columbia for the Olympic qualification event in December that earned Team Peterson another shot.
For this family, curling has been a way of life since Geoge Skelly moved his family from Winnipeg and joined the St. Paul Curling Club in the mid-’60s.
“I love the competition and the people and the travel,” Tara said. “There are so many great things about it. Maybe when the Olympics are done, I’ll take a break and have some free time. But when I’m off from work, and I have time off, I go curling.”
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