Curling’s uncle: 54-year-old lawyer who called out ICE becomes oldest US Winter Olympian | Winter Olympics 2026
The stakes were low – and the time was right – for a 54-year-old personal injury lawyer and six-time “Minnesota Lawyer of the Year” award winner to make Olympic history.
It was the end of the United States’ men’s curling match against Switzerland on Thursday and they were losing 8-2.
The team requested a replacement. Rich Ruohonen, of Brooklyn Park, Minn., stepped on the ice. He threw the corner guard and watched his stone, biting his lip until it arrived safely on the left side of the house.
“Yeah, baby! Good shot, Rich!” » shouted captain Danny Casper – born in 2001, making him 30 years younger than Ruohonen – on the ice.
The American fans gave a standing ovation. The lawyer looked melancholy. He had just become the oldest person to compete for the United States in the Winter Olympics.
“I would have rather done it when we were up 8-2 rather than down 8-2,” he said, “but I really appreciate the guys giving me a chance.”
A two-time national champion, Ruohonen competed in two world championships but never reached the Olympics until this year. Since being invited to the US Gen-Z team as a replacement for Casper, who has Guillain-Barré syndrome, Ruohonen has become a sort of honorary uncle: he drives his young teammates around, wakes them up for morning practices and buys them snacks.
All while holding down that full-time job we talk about so much.
“We got Rich. Um, he’s a lawyer. I don’t know if you knew that,” Casper said at a recent press conference, after that fact had already been mentioned four times. Curlers from the U.S. women’s and men’s teams laughed.
“If you need a lawyer, I think you can call Rich,” Casper said a few minutes later, still laughing loudly.
All joking aside, this is a serious commitment.
“I get up three days a week at 5 a.m., I leave my house at 5:15 a.m., I go and run 30 miles to train and train,” Ruohonen told the Associated Press.
He then goes to his law office and works all day before returning at 6 p.m. before resuming his practice. He spends Thursday through Sunday at curling tournaments, wearing a collared shirt and tie so he can handle Zoom audiences from the road. He has two children with his wife Sherri: Nicholas, 21, and Hannah, 24. He taught them how to curl – like his father taught him – but says Nick prefers hockey.
Earlier this week, Ruohonen, born in Saint Paul, made headlines when speaking out about recent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in his home state.
“I’m proud to be here to represent Team USA and to represent our country. But we would be remiss if we didn’t at least mention what’s happening in Minnesota and what a difficult time this has been for everyone,” he said at a news conference Tuesday. “These things happen right where we live.
“These things happen where we live. And I’m a lawyer, as you know. We have a constitution. It guarantees us freedom of the press, freedom of speech, protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures, and makes it so that we have to have probable cause to be arrested. And what’s happening in Minnesota is bad. There are no shades of gray.”
Six of the 11 members of the U.S. Olympic curling team are from Minnesota, where two people have been killed in the past three months during an immigration crackdown that has brought more than 3,000 federal agents to the state.
“I really like what’s happening there now, with people coming out, showing their love, their compassion, their integrity and their respect for others that they don’t know and helping them,” Ruohonen continued.
“We love Minnesota for that. And I want to make it clear that we are here, we love our country. We play for the United States, we play for Team USA, and we play for each other, and we play for our friends and family who have sacrificed so much to get here today.
“It doesn’t change anything because what the Olympics is about is excellence, respect, friendship. And we all, I think, exemplify that. We play for the people of Minnesota and people across the country who share those same values.”
Although Ruohonen’s younger teammates make fun of him and make him the target of occasional TikTok videos, there’s clearly a lot of love on both sides.
It was thanks to them that Ruohonen finally got her Olympic moment after failing several times. And it’s thanks to Ruohonen that the team has a mentor and a connection to the sport’s older generation, some of whom it beat to clinch their Olympic qualification.
“I come from the days when guys smoked cigarettes on the ice and all we did was throw rocks and think we could be better,” Ruohonen said while praising his teammates’ work ethic.
“Look at these guys,” he added. “Every one of them is torn. And every one of them is sweeping their butts.”
