Around the House
For many curling facilities across the country, April is the month of closing bonspiels, awards presentations and – for some – lacing up skates (instead of sliders) to destroy a season’s worth of pebbled ice.
Ask Leslie Glova, Manager of Program Development at Moose Jaw’s Mosaic Place, about the past curling season and then stand back: the all-out excitement and enthusiasm she shares about the city’s new 210,000 square foot entertainment/sports facility is impressive. Equally impressive is the role the community played in getting this project rolling and, after many years, completed.
Lots of curling clubs host bonspiels, right? The process is simple: advertise for teams, stock the bar, arrange the food, organize the prizes and entertainment, maybe do a bit of decorating, and you’re all set to go.
Attention may be focused on championship curling at the moment – the Scotties just finished, the Brier underway, and the Junior World Championships in progress – but clubs across the country have their own special events happening as well. Old and new, big and small, curling clubs love to commemorate their anniversaries and remember where they came from.
They’ve been mining gold in Dawson City, Yukon, since the 1890s, and they’ve been curling in Dawson for at least that long.
Maybe it was the appeal of the winter Olympics. Maybe it was the large number of Canadians living in town. Or maybe it was just time, as the spread of the curling bug around the United States finally reached the South. Whatever the reason, curling has taken off in Charlotte, North Carolina, fuelled by a dedicated partnership between local enthusiasts and their Canadian ex-pat neighbours.
Until recently, if you wanted to curl in Schomberg or Nobleton, King Township, Ontario, you could do so – one night a week in a hockey arena.
They’ve been curling in Collingwood since 1881, thanks in great part to the enthusiasm and hard work of its volunteers since those early days.
It’s the season of giving gifts, socializing with family and friends, and looking back – and forward. Yes, it’s resolution time.
Curling in Winnipeg? Winter wouldn’t be complete without it. But curling in Winnipeg, in the dead of winter – outdoors?
Every curler knows that a well-considered strategy can be the difference between winning and losing. But what about strategy off the ice?
In some parts of the country the leaves are still falling, and in others, the snow shovels are in action – it’s curling season from coast to coast.
It’s the nightmare that no curling club ever wants to experience: on September 25, 2007, the Windsor Curling Club in Windsor, Nova Scotia, burned to the ground.
It all started, so the story goes, when a young man named James Baird (later to be the Hon. J. Baird, member of the Legislative Council) cleared space on Quidi Vidi Lake to play the first curling game ever seen in St. John’s. The year was 1844.
In September 2011, icemakers went to work at the Club de Curling Valleé de la Gatineau/Gatineau Valley Curling Club in Maniwaki – for the very first time.
True Sport Movement
