With more than one hundred years of history and the community ties and memories to prove it, the Copper Cliff Curling Club still maintains, to this day, that appeal of small-town curling.
Small wonder then that many of those who now call it home hail from the ambiance of very similar venues, many that are smaller than the seven sheets we find at the facility on Veterans Road – and some, much smaller.
“My home club was originally the Providence Bay Curling Club,” noted newcomer and Tuesday night Squad League skip Rebecca Dawson. “There are two sheets of ice there, which I thought was the norm until I started curling all over the place.”
First introduced to the sport at the age of six, the now 25 year-old budding engineer (engineering intern, to be specific) who grew up on a farm in Spring Bay, a quasi mid-point between Lake Kagawong, Mindemoya Lake and the shores of Lake Huron on Manitoulin Island was destined to be a curler.
“I started as a junior curler, as did my little brother,” said Dawson. “We’re a curling family.”
And while children of curlers often get exposed to the passion of their parents, there are no guarantees that the game will stick. In this particular case, however, the cranial circuitry with which Dawson is blessed made curling something of a no-brainer.
“I’ve always been a math and physics person,” she said. “I was always that kid that loved the math, loved the angles. Even now, I just get so excited at seeing the possibilities. When I am at the other end, I’ll be telling them (my team) all of my thoughts – and that is the joy for me.”
“If they don’t hit the broom, I am thinking about Plan B and Plan C – and that’s so much fun.”
Leading her team of Nick McFadzen (vice), Brad Steinke (second) and Kathryn Karn (lead) into action, Dawson fully appreciates the chance to share her knowledge. “I have a good group of people who were very keen to try something new – and they trusted me enough to not lead them astray,” noted the young woman who curled with the Gryphons Jr Varsity program while attending Guelph University.
“We are not winning a lot, but we are learning this year. Tonight, we didn’t win, but we had a good game, got lots of points – and it was a lot of fun.”
Fun is also at the heart of what has kept 60 year-old Dave Johnson coming back, year after year, many years removed from his earliest ventures in to the Coniston Curling Club as a pre-teen, sharing the ice in his youth with the likes of the Dumontelle and Sauvé clans, as well as Ron Henderson.
“I tried curling when I was twelve,” said Johnson, now just over a decade into his tenure as a member in Copper Cliff. “We started off with running shoes with duct tape, did that for a bit – then I worked my way up to juniors.”
He would continue with the sport even as work took him to Timmins, returning to Sudbury eventually and more than a little excited when the opportunity came to jump back into the game that now presents a whole different load of challenges from his more competitive days.
“This is a beer league, a really good time – and I enjoy it,” said Johnson. “There’s a lot of stretching now, before the game, but even then, when I slide, I can feel it in my right knee. I’ll pop a couple of aspirins after the game. But my dad is 90 and he still curls here.”
And when you’ve been doing it that long, there’s bound to be a memory or two that jumps out, even among club curlers who fully recognize their limitations. “We were in the Post Bonspiel a couple of years ago and we had to play against Brian’s son (our skip) on the Saturday night – and he’s a very good curler,” recalled Johnson.
It all would come down to the final end, with Johnson throwing fourth stones for his crew.
“I tried a shot and figured: if I do it, I do it. If I don’t, I don’t. Well, I made the shot to bury it and we came out winners. It was awesome.”
Awesome is likely the recollection that Team Castec will have from their Frood Stobie Recreational Curling League game of January 17th as the foursome of David Middleton, Ron Miron, Rick Melanson and Joe Hurley registered a rare eight-ender – with Middleton acknowledging that he was shaking prior to delivering the final stone.
And finally, Little Current is the place to be this weekend as Northern Ontario crowns their representatives to both the Brier and the Scotties Tournament of Hearts. Heading into play on Friday afternoon, there remained plenty to be decided.
Only five teams of the field of 14 on the men’s side had been eliminated since play began on Wednesday in the triple knockout format, with no big surprises to date. The “A” qualifier Friday night will feature the Tanner Horgan rink (Jacob Horgan, Ian McMillan, Scott Chadwick) opposite the Trevor Bonot Thunder Bay foursome that also includes Mike McCarville, Jordan Potts and Kurtis Byrd.
Team Horgan earned the "A" qualifier slot with a 10-4 win over Team Bonot.
In the “B” draw, it’s down to Jordan Chandler (Little Current CC) and Brian Adams Jr (Port Arthur CC), with the winner of their Friday evening game (*Adams - 7-6 in an extra end) set to take on the loser of Horgan and Bonot on Saturday afternoon. The remaining five teams, a group which encompasses locals Sandy MacEwan, Mike Assad and Ian Deschene are still battling it out, with playoffs set for Sunday.
The six team field on the women’s side of things would see the Northern Credit Union CC rink skipped by Krysta Burns (Jestyn Murphy, Sara Guy, Laura Masters) and defending champion Krista McCarville (Kendra Lilly at lead) both capture their first games, along with Laura Johnston from North Bay.
Other local connections vying for NOCA Ladies supremacy include Team Mann (Abby Deschene at skip; Stephanie Barbeau at vice) and Team McCormick (Jen Gates at second; Amanda Gates at lead).
