Ashley Metzger, Centretown News
A team of pirates curl against a team of lumberjacks at the Ottawa Sports and Social Club’s Goblins and Ghouls curling tournament.Curlers in Centretown got an early taste of Halloween during the community’s first major curling bonspiel of the season.
Hosted by the Ottawa Sport and Social Club at the Rideau Curling Club, the bonspiel’s theme was Goblins and Ghouls. The OSSC encouraged participants to play dressed up in their Halloween costumes.
The tournament was timed to coincide with Halloween, says Lael Morgan executive director of the OSSC. In past years, it has been held at the beginning of October.
“We find that people are looking to do different things around Halloween, not just parties. So this provides them another opportunity to dress up,” she says.
According to Morgan, the bonspiels, along with curling in general, are growing in popularity.
“They sell out now. There’s been a huge gain in popularity around curling and it’s becoming more of a fun, funky sport for the younger generation,” she says. “We’re also finding that our demographic, the longer we’ve been in this city, is actually starting to grow older with us.”
However, Andrew Bugg, president of the Rideau Curling Club, says that as people get older their lives get busier and it can become harder for them to be involved in the sport and its bonspiels.
“Every bonspiel that a curling club hosts, that people know about and attend, is a plus for curling as a whole. It’s sort of a tradition that’s been a little more difficult to get people involved in,” he says.
“For the OSSC to organize something like this is huge because the OSSC has a unique tap into the youth that doesn’t necessarily know about what is happening in the rest of the curling community.”
Nonetheless, Bugg has also seen a rise in popularity recently. He says the success of Canadian curlers in the Olympics compounded with the Brier, the national men’s curling championship, coming to Ottawa means that more people are phoning the club looking to try the sport.
“It’s also the fact that anybody can do it. It doesn’t matter if you’re 10 years old or 67 years old, you can still come out and you can curl. It’s not a physically demanding sport like soccer or hockey,” Bugg says.
Morgan agrees that the lack of skill level needed to begin the sport attracts a lot of the clubs members.
“You don’t need to be a professional curler or played in high school to be able to actually curl. It’s really inclusive of most of the population,” Morgan says.
Curling clubs tend to have a pub-style environment. They typically have a social area and bar and the Centretown ones are no exception. Both Morgan and Bugg see this as another appeal because of the social aspect of it.
Bugg says that one of the first things taught about curling is the social etiquette attached to the sport. He also says the bar helps to provide the profit needed to run a curling club.
“After every curling game, it’s tradition that the winners have to buy the first round for the losers. If you’re new to curling you’ll find that every club you walk into has a bar for the social part, but also the bar is a key revenue generator for the club,” he says.
Morgan says her club also conforms to this curling tradition.
“It’s a really social sport, so that’s huge attraction for sure,” she says.
The OSSC will continue to encourage community members to participate in curling bonspiels. The next one is on Nov. 28. The theme will be Where’s Waldo and it will be held at the Carleton Heights Curling Club in Nepean.