So the U.S. men’s and women’s curling teams have been eliminated from the Vancouver Winter Olympics. The teams couldn’t seem to catch a break after hoping success at a venue so close to home would help spread the popularity of their sports in the United States. Many team members were from Minnesota.

The men ended their Olympic Games with a loss to China.

China?

According to the U.S. Curling Association, there are 13,000 curlers and 135 curling clubs in the United States.

For comparison’s sake, there are 1.3 million curlers in Canada. In China, there are 100 curlers, and no one played it seven years ago.

How is this?

It is because instead of assembling an all-star team like the United States does in hockey, basketball and other sports, curling clubs compete to determine which team goes to the Olympics. In 2006 in Torino, Italy, the men captured a bronze, so it seemed the system was working.

Meanwhile, other countries were catching up to teams from North America. China’s team trained in Canada. Interest in curling in Scandinavian countries has risen.

The failures of this Olympics reveals a flawed system. USA Curling will face pressure — and rightly so — to change the way the U.S. men’s and women’s Olympic curling teams are determined.

It already is headed in that direction. It was a reason given for the benching of the men’s captain in favor of a younger player after the team kept losing.

In the U.S. talented players are coming from some unexpected places such as San Francisco and Florida. These players might not play on great teams, but they might shine on an Olympic team. A new system at least would give them a shot.

Plus, even with talent spread across teams in traditional places, like Minnesota, assembling only the best of the best, rather than the best team from the best clubs, should produce medal results in the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

Many Tribune employees, especially Creative Director Stacey Bahr, remain huge fans of curling.