When John Shuster dropped a third and decisive match at the 2025 U.S. Olympic Men’s Curling Trials, it meant he would not be curling at the Olympic Games for the first time since Salt Lake City 2002.
Shuster had been a part of five straight men’s curling teams at the Olympics, winning a bronze medal at his first ever Games in Torino 2006, Team USA’s first ever curling gold medal at PyeongChang 2018, and he served as a flag bearer at the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Games.
For any American under the age of 24, it would be the first time they were alive for an Olympics that John Shuster would not take part in.
Except, the day after Shuster’s loss at the Olympic Trials, NBC reached out asking if it was possible to be part of the Games on the other side of the television broadcast. On February 10, Shuster was in Stamford, Connecticut, as part of NBC’s coverage of the same day that Cory Thiesse and Korey Dropkin were winning a silver medal for Team USA in mixed doubles curling.
That medal helped “push curling up into the forefront of people’s minds,” Shuster told Awful Announcing, and helped kickstart his run of appearing on both curling broadcasts and as the in-house curling expert on NBC’s “Gold Zone” daily programming.
Despite starting on a “wait and see” basis, Shuster credited Gold Zone hosts Matt Iseman and Jac Collinsworth for getting him both up to speed in how the broadcast works and building confidence in his media skills. He says that it was thanks to them that everything “instantly kind of clicked,” and his insight has been leveraged as the men’s and women’s curling tournaments have gained momentum. In addition to his “Gold Zone” work, Shuster has been a part of commentary for the curling broadcasts that NBC has put on during the Games.
Jumping into the booth gave John Shuster firsthand experience of how many people it takes to put together an Olympic program. Playing his part in helping create something “fun and informative” is what drives him when going to the studio each day.
John Shuster is a true vet to the game of curling. 🫡
📺: Primetime in Milan: 8/7c on NBC and Peacock pic.twitter.com/eKhiMAdViZ
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) February 11, 2026
Curling is in a unique position broadcast-wise in the Winter Olympics in that it is the only sport to have games playing every single day of competition, even before the Opening Ceremony. With three robust round robin tournaments, it offers a large number of games multiple times a day, filling plenty of airtime. For a broadcast like Gold Zone, that means Shuster can come in and comment on multiple games at once, in between action in other sports.
“Gold Zone has really allowed me to bring out the realness of what I am as a curler,” Shuster told Awful Announcing. “And getting a chance to show maybe we’re a little bit more human than what people perceive when you’re watching the Olympics.”
Being a fixture in the highest levels of the sport for nearly a quarter century means that Shuster knows many of the players on the ice at the Olympic curling tournament, and has been teammates with many of them. He says he’s been sending messages of encouragement as both the men’s and women’s teams have gone on winning streaks, as well as offering advice for what he is seeing in the broadcast booth.
The personal touches that Shuster adds throughout the Gold Zone broadcast have proven to be a hit with fans, and he plans on being a part of the show all the way up to the Closing Ceremony. Ideally, he will be providing perspective for another Team USA curling medal as it happens on top of the mixed doubles’ silver.
One of the biggest adjustments Shuster noticed when stepping into the booth is he reflexively referred to his Team USA teammates as “us,” considering how close the national team pool has been over the last decade. Shuster may have been on five straight Olympic teams, but for many of those cycles, his spot at the Games was far from guaranteed.
Still, being around the culture of Team USA, Shuster says its not just his fellow curlers that he’s been watching on the broadcasts while with the Gold Zone crew. If an athlete has been to multiple Olympics, there’s a chance he has interacted with them or knows them from training in similar locales.
“We were watching the men’s snowboard cross, and it was fun for me to come in after that got done, because Nick Baumgartner made the semifinal and I know him very well,” Shuster said. “He lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, but I know him extremely well, and getting to watch him compete while that was happening, to go out and be able to talk about it [on air] and celebrate it was really fun for me.”
Working out of NBC’s studios in the States means that Shuster’s afternoons are free, given that live coverage wraps up before the primetime broadcasts start later in the evening. Ever the athlete, this factored immensely into his decision in whether or not to take the Olympic assignment, given that the 2026 U.S. Curling Championships start the day after the closing ceremony on February 23 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
John Shuster is looking to win his 10th U.S. curling championships, which would qualify his foursome for the 2026 World Curling Championships in March in Ogden, Utah.
“There’s two curling facilities to curling clubs that are within 40-minute drives of here that I’ve been able to continue to practice to prepare for our national championships which would start right after this ends,” he said. “Coming and broadcasting here, at the expense of not throwing practice stones, is something I couldn’t look myself in the mirror and do, either for myself or for my teammates.”
Sydney Bauer is a freelance journalist from New Jersey. She has covered the Olympics and the behind the scenes aspects of it since London 2012. If there’s an Olympic sport, she’s watched it.
