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Jesse Wachter has travelled far from home documenting curling and the lives of players on and off the ice but his latest idea might just be his most ambitious yet.

The Canadian filmmaker has taken aim at the U.S. scene for his next project, Walking on Water: Curling in America, and has turned to the community itself by launching an Indiegogo website.

Wachter has seen the changing landscape of the television and film industry during his decade in the business and believes it’s something that could only exist with the support of curlers and fans alike.

“We get to experience a community of curlers around the entire world and we want to create something that the community will enjoy and appreciate both as relatable entertainment but also as a tool with which to grow the sport from,” said Wachter, who also produces videos for the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling. “You know who likes curling content? The curling community and they will watch it anywhere they can. Also, we live in the future and have the internet, so I don’t know why I would ever want to produce content that wasn’t accessible to everyone everywhere.”

The timing couldn’t be better with the sport on the verge of a watershed moment in the U.S. thanks to John Shuster’s “Miracurl on Ice” at the Winter Olympics. While the sport has taken root with clubs and tournaments spread as far south as Hollywood and Phoenix, nothing captures the mainstream consciousness quite like an Olympic gold medal.

“The builders in the sport have been saying it for years, everyone is saying it now, no matter how passionate American curlers are about the sport and no matter how many new clubs open and load up on registration, America needs to win a gold medal at the Olympics to make a real dent in its commercial popularity and viability,” Wachter said. “The World Curling Federation pumps money into deals with NBC to get Curling Night in America on the air. Curling Canada runs the Continental Cup in Las Vegas whenever they can. Everyone knows what’s going to happen when big corporate American dollars start to trickle down into the sport and when thousands upon thousands start showing up to see their favourite curlers duke it out in an arena.

“Curling has been on the cusp of becoming a professional sport, but I don’t believe corporate America has been interested in dumping money into something that America isn’t any good at on the world stage. Now the whole world just witnessed America be the best at curling, and corporate America is going to love it.”

The U.S. curling scene was on Wachter’s mind when he attempted to launch Far From Home, a documentary series looking at curling around the world. Although that one fell short of its crowdfunding goal, Wachter couldn’t help but notice where a significant portion of pledges came from and led him to refocus his scope.

“American curlers and fans backed nearly 70 percent of all pledges contributed to our previous project,” he said. “There was supposed to be a single episode about maybe two summer events in California and nobody got behind what we were doing like they did. When the final day for pledges arrived and we found ourselves substantially short of our campaign goal, all I could think about was how generous and hungry Americans were for a good curling story.”

Wachter said he has already put in a fair amount of work into the project covering tournaments in the U.S. for CurlingZone and the World Curling Tour and once things got rolling it only snowballed from there.

“We always wanted this to be one of the stories to tell, but after being to American clubs and events and getting to know more players and builders from the USA, this became the story we wanted to tell,” he said. “Americans are itching to share their unique experience, culture and passion within the sport. They are eager to see it grow and the rest of the curling world wants to see it grow because of how much fun people have when they travel to American events. I could probably create a documentary about all the reasons it makes sense to do a documentary on American curling.”

There’s still more work to be done in the wake of Shuster’s Olympic gold-medal victory.

“We’ve captured some of the leadup to the 2018 Winter Olympics, but a lot of this story just became the story of John Shuster’s America and the impact of the USA men’s curling team capturing gold in Korea,” Wachter said. “Now that we’ve launched a trailer and campaign, a lot more stories and individuals are coming out of the woodwork that we need to consider as well. As the word spreads we are finding out even more about what makes the culture in America great and people are coming forward with all sorts of ideas.

“It’s exciting but admittedly it’s a lot more to consider! A logistical challenge is the sheer size of the country and that we only have so much curling season in the year.”

Perks for donating range from a cup of coffee (“Not all heroes wear capes” as the Indiegogo page states) to autograph cards and pins and Dynasty Curling apparel. There’s also the appropriately titled “Granite Sponsorship” that comes with a commemorative curling rock.

To contribute to Walking on Water: Curling in America, click here.