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Baxter Arena was in nothing more than the planning stages when UNO Associate Athletic Director Mike Kemp started talking with the Omaha Sports Commission about what the future might bring at 67th and Center Streets.

It was maybe 2012 or 2013, Kemp said, when he and OSC President Harold Cliff met several times “about the possibility of looking at a variety of different things that would be appropriate for this building.”

The first will come in November 2017 with the U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Curling.

Officials announced the event on Monday. It will lead into the 2018 Winter Games and be hosted by UNO, Baxter Arena and the Omaha Sports Commission, in partnership with the Aksarben Curling Club.

“This is a great opportunity for our university to showcase the great facility we have and for our community to showcase the great city that we have,” Kemp said. “And I know the community will get behind this event 100 percent.