Larry Farovitch was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec in Canada. Farovitch started curling in 1979 when he was 32 years old and quickly became a rising star in the deaf Canadian curling circuit. He moved to Vancouver, British Columbia in 1989 where he skipped a deaf curling team who won 13 straight deaf province championships and placed third twice and second once at the Canadian national championships. His team even went as far as the semi-final in Labbat Bear, a premier national championship for hearing curlers in Canada.
In 1993, Farovitch married an American woman and moved to Arizona. For obvious reasons, he stopped curling because there is no ice sheet in Arizona to curl. After 13 years absence from curling, a Canadian curler referred Jack Lamberton of USADSF to Farovitch to start and prepare the deaf American curling team for the 16th Winter Deaflympics.
Starting the American team was no easy task as he had to recruit experienced and new deaf curlers across the country. The curling team representing the United States at Winter Deaflympics is composed of five curlers: Farovitch, Mark Adams, David Sicoli, Herman Fuechtmann, and Calvin Rausch. Adams has curled for 23 years and Winter Deaflympics is his first all-deaf curling event. Sicoli's father is an acclaimed deaf curler in Canada and incidentally curled with Farovitch many years ago. Fuechtmann and Rausch are probably the least experienced curlers at Winter Deaflympics with eight months of training and one bonspiel under their belts. Nevertheless, Farovitch is very proud of the American team because they are performing better than he expected considering the only time they have come together to practice is at a bonspiel in Minnesota last December where they won two contests and lost one.
Returning to curling after a 13-year hiatus proves to be exhilarating and, yet, exhausting for Farovitch who had to exercise more regularly to get back in shape and curl often to fine-tune his skills once admired throughout Canada in the 1980s and 1990s. Having faced a challenge of curling five games and scrimmages in the last four days, "I am very proud of myself because I can still curl at the age of 60!" exclaimed Farovitch.
When asked what he thought of curling being part of Winter Deaflympics, Farovitch replies, "I can't believe it. It is about time!"
Favoritch is certainly setting American's presence in the deaf curling world and the gold medal in the near future will definitely set his legacy.