Category: Sports

Curlers will be sweeping across Ottawa as some of Ontario’s best players come to compete in the 23rd annual Ontario deaf curling championships this month.

Visible from parts of Centretown, the national capital region YMCA-YWCA stands tall against a now bleak backdrop. With the change of season, its brown brick walls match the bare limbs on the trees outside, and somehow it seems even more noticeable.

If this sounds like a commercial, it’s because it is. Well, in a sense. With less than six weeks left to game day, the city is already preparing to play host. It’s a chance it gets once in a “grey” moon. But behind the fanfare, corporate sponsorship and anticipation of watching football greats battle it out, there is much left undone. Enter the volunteers.

The acoustics in this gym enhance every last sound, from the squeaks of shoes on the court to the heavy breaths coming from each player’s mouth.