Hosted by the Greater Lansing Sports Authority, USA Curling, the Lansing Curling Club and the Summit Sports and Ice Complex, the championships will welcome hundreds of male and female curlers from across the country to face off on the ice.

Originating in 16th-century Scotland, curling is played by two teams of four players, each aiming to slide stones across a sheet of ice with a broom or brush toward an area segmented into four rings.

Each team has eight stones weighing around 40 pounds a piece. After all stones are played, the team with the most stones closest to the center of the house, a circular target marked on the ice, wins the game.

Event chairman and Lansing Curling Club president Mark McElwee said the Lansing Curling Club and its partners put in a bid to host the championship in Lansing and it was selected.

Last year in Fort Wayne, Ind., the 2013 USA Curling Arena National Championships brought out 32 teams of curlers. This year, McElwee said Lansing is working to continue the same success and hopefully bring out more teams.

“We’re hoping to add some things to it, a couple of wrinkles that will really enhance the experience for everybody who comes to check it out,” McElwee said. “We’re working with the Summit to redo our curling markings on the ice to have five games going on at once instead of four … so we’ll be able to hopefully expand the competition beyond 32 teams if there’s interest.”

Taking home the gold last year was the Dakota Curling Club, of Burnsville, Minn., in the women’s division, and the Kalamazoo Curling Club, of Kalamazoo, Mich. in the men’s division.