Olympic gold medalist curler Matt Hamilton is living the dream, even if he can't shave his 'stache

McFARLAND - How cool is it to be Matt Hamilton?

Since February 2018 the mustachioed Olympic gold medal-winning curler from McFarland has:

• Rung the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange
• Competed against Jimmy Fallon in shuffleboard curling on The Tonight Show
• Thrown out first pitches in two Major League stadiums, including Miller Park
• Delivered a puck attached to a curling stone before a Toronto Maple Leafs/Washington Capitals outdoor game, then shook hockey god Alex Ovechkin's hand
• Adorned the side of a box of Remington razors and became an official Remington Beard Boss
• Given curling pointers to country music star Dierks Bentley, who brought him on stage at a concert 

He even has his own bobblehead.

Unnoticed by pretty much everyone in the U.S., curling only attracts American attention once every four years, when its part of Olympic coverage. However, the sport exploded following the men's team's first-ever gold medal in South Korea in 2018. Riding that curling wave has been Hamilton, whose 15 minutes of fame have stretched to 13 months and counting.

That's entirely fine with him.

"Right now I'm just trying to take advantage of every opportunity. I don't really shy away from the spotlight," Hamilton said on a recent afternoon while taking a break from practicing at the Madison Curling Club.

This week Hamilton and most of the 2018 gold medal-winning U.S. men's curling team is competing in Canada at the World Curling Championships. 

Sure, curling might look like something that started a couple of hundred years ago when someone said to a friend, "Hold my beer while I push this stone across some ice," but it's actually a game that involves a great deal of strategy. Wisconsin is a curling hotbed — plenty of ice here — and the United States Curling Association's headquarters is in Stevens Point.

Hamilton, 30, understands the perception that curling does not involve the athleticism of hockey, downhill skiing or biathlon. A meme circulating on social media showed a photo of Hamilton and his three teammates whooping it up after a victory and the words "The U.S. Men's Curling Team looks like a group of dads that were just trying to get away from their families for a weekend but somehow ended up competing in the Olympics."

Hamilton thought it was hilarious. "I don't 100% disagree with that," he said.

But Hamilton trains and practices just like other Olympic athletes and has spent 15 years of his life focusing on a game that ultimately brought him to the top of an Olympic podium with a gold medal draped around his neck. For him, curling isn't a quadrennial fad. It's his passion.

Curling since his teens

Hamilton and his sister, Becca, who is 17 months younger, started curling as teens at the Madison Curling Club, which is located in McFarland, after their father Scott introduced them to the game. When Hamilton watched his father curl the first time he was decidedly unimpressed. 

Two weeks later, Hamilton returned to watch his dad play. One of the club members rapped on the ice house window and mouthed to Scott Hamilton "Does he play?" The next thing his father knew, Matt was on the ice getting pointers.

"He came the next day and he started practicing. We couldn't get him out of there. He kept coming and coming," said Scott Hamilton. "Eventually his sister came to watch. I asked her if she wanted to play and she said 'Nah, I just want to watch.' "

The same club member asked the same question, and pretty soon Becca Hamilton was learning. And before Scott Hamilton knew it, he was in Pyeongchang for most of February watching his two kids in the Olympics — together in mixed doubles and separately on the women's and men's teams.

"I'm in awe. Matt's good on camera, he's good with people. We go to Canada for curling and there are lines of people waiting to get Matt's autograph. He signs every one," said Scott Hamilton. "I think that's just Matt."

Just over a year from his Olympic turn, Matt Hamilton still gets "Are you that curler?" and "Are you Matt Hamilton?" and "Aren't you that gold medalist from Madison?" when he travels. Plus, the TSA workers at Madison's airport know him.

"They're like, 'Hey Matt, off to another contest? Do you have the medal?' Because they always see it and are like 'Oh, we have to check it.' So now I just pull it out of my bag. It's like a laptop," said Hamilton.

His Twitter followers jumped from 4,000 before the Olympics to 22,000 after them, and his Instagram followers went from 3,000 to 20,000. He got to sound the rally horn at a Las Vegas Golden Knights game and competed in human ice bowling at a Milwaukee Admirals game. When Dierks Bentley tagged him on Instagram after the country musician went curling in Canada, Hamilton replied, offering curling lessons in exchange for guitar lessons for a friend.

Hamilton noticed Bentley was coming to Duluth, so he drove up to Minnesota and met with Bentley before the show for a curling lesson. Then Bentley called Hamilton up on the stage for the last song and Hamilton curled a can of Budweiser on the stage.

Hamilton looked at his 2018 calendar and realized he was on the road 140 days for curling plus another 20 days for personal appearances.

"It has definitely been a whirlwind," said his wife Jen Hamilton, a physician's assistant in Madison. "We've had so many amazing opportunities."

They met at a party after a Wisconsin Badgers football game. Hamilton's pickup line was "Are you a Packers fan?" She is. They married in 2017. Two of the Swedish curling team members Hamilton would vanquish in the Olympic gold medal game came to the wedding.

She doesn't curl but is happy to watch.

"The outpouring of support is the greatest thing. So many people have said 'I stayed up until 3 a.m. watching you.' It's so cool the sport is getting so much attention," Jen Hamilton said.

Famous mustache

Part of Hamilton's appeal, aside from the ruggedly handsome good looks and the persona of a guy anyone would want to have a beer with, is his facial hair.

Hamilton has grown a rally 'stache during curling season the last few years, shaving it off once competition is over in April. Which is fine with his wife, who dislikes the mustache. Actually, in Hamilton's words, Jen hates the mustache "with a fiery passion." But when Hamilton's mustache became a star in its own right, Hamilton was stuck. 

He works in research and development for Spectrum Brands in Middleton and Remington Shavers is one of the company's brands. So naturally when Remington asked if he wanted to become a member of the Remington Beard Boss team he was all in. He makes appearances and his photo is on a shaver box. Plus he was asked to compete in a beard and mustache championship but couldn't because it overlapped with a curling tournament. 

"I'm a lot better at curling than I am at growing a mustache. It takes me like three weeks to grow it to a decent point," said Hamilton.

His second favorite sport is golf. Hamilton and the rest of the curling team were invited to California to visit Callaway Golf Company where they posed for photos and received new sets of golf clubs, bags and balls.

Golf also helped him meet the ultimate Packers star. Aaron Rodgers and Hamilton tweeted back and forth during the Olympics, but the Packers fan didn't get to meet the Packer signal-caller until last May when they were both playing in the BMW Charity Pro Am in South Carolina. They posed for photos with Rodgers wearing Hamilton's medal.

The gold medal came in handy when Hamilton used it for a ball marker on the par 3 fourth hole, the video going viral and featured on ESPN. Clad in very colorful pants and golf shirt adorned with red, white and blue stars, Hamilton noticed a camera tower and figured it would be fun to pull out his medal to mark his ball.

Hamilton admits it has been hard to absorb meeting, getting calls and shout-outs from celebrities ranging from Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl and former Packers star Donald Driver to Mr. T.

While 2018 was crazy, 2019 has tapered off a bit. And he's fine with that. He's still training and competing with an eye on going to China for the 2022 Winter Olympics.

"I had no idea what to expect. No one who has won a gold medal thinks about the stuff that will happen after. The dream is winning and anything that happens after is sort of surreal."

Contact Meg Jones at (414) 224-2064 or meg.jones@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram at @MegJonesJS