Curlers representing 260 teams from Ottawa and around North America participated in the City of Ottawa Men’s International Bonspiel. The event was held earlier this month at rinks around the city.
The sound of granite colliding with granite filled the air at 19 different curling clubs in Ottawa and the surrounding area earlier this month, including the Ottawa Curling Club and Rideau Curling Club.
Curlers on 260 teams from around the city and elsewhere participated in the 53rd City of Ottawa Men’s International Bonspiel.
“I like to believe right now that we’re the biggest [bonspiel] in the world,” said Mike Schulz, one of the event’s organizers at the Ottawa Curling Club on the corner of O’Connor and Catherine.
Schulz said most of the teams are from the Ottawa area, but seven American teams and 27 Canadian out-of-town teams from cities such as Vancouver, Winnipeg and Montreal also participated. He said the competition attracted teams from outside of North America, the French and Australian national teams, last year.
“We’ll get a couple of teams from overseas that want to get the practice because they can curl as many as 11 games here in four days, and that’s a lot of curling,” said Schulz.
Beyond the competition, however, Schulz and others agree that the reason the event is so fun is because curling is a great social sport that is growing in popularity. Schulz said most curling clubs in the Ottawa area have around 300 or 400 members, and that the sport serves as his social outlet.
“It can be competitive, but after the game’s over with, you sit down with the team you played against, and you know, the game’s pretty much secondary,” said John Bradley of the Navan Curling Club.
Bradley said the top events can be more competitive if a team starts off well.
“But if you lose your first few games, you’re pretty much down into the social teams,” he said.
There are three divisions and 26 events in the double-knockout tournament.
When a team loses twice, it is not simply eliminated from the tournament, but instead continues to compete in the next event with other teams which have lost their games, and so on.
This year’s top competitive teams in the top-tier event were Shane Latimer (Winchester, Ont.) in the open division, Bruce Delaney (Navy Curling Club) in the over 50 division, and George Burns-Nichol (Richmond Curling Club) in the over 65 division.
A number of teams from both the Ottawa Curling Club and Rideau Curling Club had success in various events.
Bill Blad (Rideau) and Michael Raby (OCC) faced off for the title in one tournament, with Blad’s team coming out on top. Other successful teams included James Sutherland (OCC), Mike Johanson, Ron Hrycak (OCC) Chris Kelly (Rideau), Colin Babyak (Rideau) and George Richard (Rideau) who all won their divisions.
Leon Jang, who is only in his second year curling, said it seemed everyone was just there to have a lot of fun.
“I was afraid it would be competitive,” said Jang. “I was scared to play these guys.”
While the event attracts curlers from all around Ottawa and abroad, Bradley said he’s not sure whether the sport is growing.
“I think this bonspiel’s more about tradition than anything else,” said Bradley. “It’s just really good at bringing all the curlers out for one huge event.”
Schulz said the City of Ottawa Bonspiel Committee is doing its best to try and publicize the sport and to inspire more people to get involved.
Besides events, Schulz said he advertises curling as good exercise for the participants, as well as quality camaraderie. He emphasizes the opportunities to go to bonspiels around Ottawa and further away, and to meet new people.
“The numbers are not skyrocketing, but there are some success stories,” said Schulz.
He said one old arena in Kemptville, Ont. was converted into a curling club. The club now has about 400 curlers, whereas it previously had 150.
“We’ve got to do some more of that,” said Schulz.