The stakes were low – and the time ripe – for a 54-year-old personal injury lawyer and six-time winner of “Minnesota Attorney of the Year” to make Olympic history.
It was the end of the US men’s curling match against Switzerland on Thursday and they were down 8-2.
The team called a substitution. Rich Ruohonen, from Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, stepped on to the ice. He hurled the corner guard and watched his stone, biting his lip until it arrived safely at the left flank of the house.
“Yeah, baby! Good shot, Rich!” skip Danny Casper – who was born in 2001, making him 30 years younger than Ruohonen – shouted across the ice.
US fans gave a standing ovation. The lawyer looked wistful. He’d just become the oldest person to compete for the US at the Winter Olympics.
“I would have rather done it when we were up 8-2 instead of down 8-2,” he said, “but I really appreciate the guys giving me a chance.”
A two-time national champion, Ruohonen competed at two world championships but never reached the Olympics until this year. Since he was invited to the Gen-Z US team as an alternate for Casper, who has Guillain-Barré syndrome, Ruohonen has become something of an honorary uncle: driving his younger teammates around, waking them up for morning trainings and buying them snacks.
All while holding that much-discussed full-time job.
“We got Rich. Uh, he’s a lawyer. I don’t know if you guys knew that,” said Casper at a recent news conference, after that fact had already been mentioned four times. Curlers from the US women’s and men’s teams cracked up.
“If you need a lawyer, I think you can call Rich,” Casper said a few minutes later, again to uproarious laughter.
Jokes aside, it’s a serious commitment.
“I get up three days a week at 5 in the morning, leave my house by 5:15 in the morning, go drive 30 miles to work out and train,” Ruohonen told the Associated Press.
He then heads to his law practice and works all day before returning at 6pm before heading to practice again. He spends Thursday through Sunday away at curling tournaments, toting around a collared shirt and a tie so he can handle hearings on Zoom from the road. He has two kids with his wife Sherri: Nicholas, 21, and Hannah, 24. He has taught them to curl – as his father taught him – but says Nick prefers hockey.
Earlier this week, Ruohonen, who was born in Saint Paul, made headlines for speaking about the recent US 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’d be remiss if we didn’t at least mention what’s going on in Minnesota and what a tough time it’s been for everybody,” he said in a Tuesday news conference. “This stuff is happening right, right around where we live.
“This stuff is happening right around where we live. And I am a lawyer, as you know. We have a constitution. It allows us freedom of the press, freedom of speech, protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures, and makes it so we have to have probable cause to be pulled over. And what’s happening in Minnesota is wrong. There’s no shades of gray.”’
Six of the 11 members of the US Olympic curling team are from Minnesota, where two people were killed over the past three months during an immigration crackdown that brought more than 3,000 federal agents into the state.
“I really love what’s been happening there now with people coming out, showing the love, the compassion, integrity and respect for others that they don’t know and helping them out,” Ruohonen continued.
“We love Minnesota for that. And I want to make it clear that we’re out here, we love our country. We’re playing for the US, we’re playing for Team USA, and we’re playing for each other, and we’re playing for our friends and family that’s sacrificed so much to get here today.
“That doesn’t change anything because what the Olympics means is excellence, respect, friendship. And we all, I think, exemplify that. We are playing for the people of Minnesota and the people around the country who share those same values.”
Though Ruohonen’s younger teammates poke fun and make him the butt of the occasional TikTok video, there’s clearly a lot of love on both sides.
It’s because of them that Ruohonen finally got his Olympic moment after falling just short on several occasions. And it’s because of Ruohonen that the team has a mentor and a connection to the older generation of the sport, some of whom they defeated to clinch their Olympic qualification.
“I came from the days when guys were smoking cigarettes out on the ice and all we did was throw rocks and think that we could be better,” Ruohonen said while praising his teammates’ work ethic.
“Look at these guys,” he added. “Every one of them’s ripped. And every one of them sweeps their butt off.”
