A new curling event in Regina is sending a growing number of participants hurling past the hog line - and it’s not who you’d expect.
Regina’s Tartan Curling Club is hosting a monthly event that combines an open curling tournament with a rock show. For $10 participants get a beverage, a chance to throw some rocks and watch some live music. It’s bringing a new fan base to the more than 500-year-old sport.
The club had about 50 curlers at its last event, not including those who came just to see the band.
“I was delighted,” said Alan Bratt, manager of Regina’s Tartan Curling Club.
Bratt calls the lack of young people in the sport a “perennial problem.”
When Bratt began working at the club more than three decades ago there were long wait lists and a jam packed ice schedule, which he attributes to an influx of rural people to the cities.
“Curling was an egalitarian sport. You had accountants playing beside farmers playing beside welders. It was one of the few that hadn’t been tainted by excessive professionalism or money,” he said.
Now, they’re looking for ways to bring young adults into the sport.
“We dropped the ball a long time ago. We didn’t really promote it enough to keep the generations going,” said Bratt.
Piper Burns has worked at the Tartan Curling Club for several years. This season the university student and musician is helping to spearhead the monthly tournament and rock show.
At the last event at the end of January he ran the draws, organized the teams and then sat behind the drum kit with his band The Gates of Dawn.
Burns says people would come to a show anyway, but by having it at the curling club it becomes an event. As a bonus, some of the people who first came to catch the bands but enjoyed the game are coming back each week for the regular Friday mini-blender, which features an open tournament but no entertainment.
Although Burns worked at the club for a couple years, he wasn’t into curling until his older brother Marshall, also a musician, convinced him to try the sport. The brothers and a group of friends spend every Tuesday night throwing rocks at the Tartan.
He’s drawn to the sport for both the social element and the strategy.
“It’s a lot of brains,” said Burns. “It’s an accessible sport. You can play with your friends.”
In Saskatoon an annual event called the Bruce MacDonald Funspiel pairs a cabaret-style rock show with a day-long curling tournament. The curling tournament is hosted by the Ness Creek Music Festival as a way to build community and has been running for 23 years.
“It’s way more about the fun than the actual sport itself,” said Carlie Letts, a Ness Creek staffer and event organizer. The tournament sells out almost every year, with prizes for best costumes and team spirit. Letts says the event is a fun way to get the community together without requiring a high level of physical ability or skill.
“The team that won first place two years ago, three of the four members had never curled before in their life,” she said, noting two of those team members went on to become avid curlers. Above all, the sport allows people to let loose and have fun, which could account for some of the event’s great success.
“Curling’s one of those sports where you can definitely enjoy a beverage or two and take a bit more of a lighthearted approach to it,” said Letts. “Most people aren’t going out and training.”
Whether you’re a child who doesn’t weigh much more than the rock itself or a centenarian, the sport is accessible to all. There’s limited equipment required – think a broom, slider and a pair of running shoes. Matching windbreakers are not mandatory.
Positioning and strategy are paramount – to use a cliché – it’s like “chess on ice.” In an increasingly fast-paced society, curling’s slow pace might provide an antidote to all that rushing around. It’s also exceedingly social.
“There’s a long tradition of curling being, if not a drinker’s game, there is partying involved,” said Bratt. When Bratt first started coming to the Tartan it was a hangout spot, not just a recreation centre.
“The Blender’s kind of revived that spirit. It’s not just ‘curl your game, go home.’ You’re participating in a larger event,” he said. “We’re trying to make a community.”
The next Tartan Blender is scheduled for Feb. 27.
