(Submitted photo/Mike McClelland)

By Ben Tompkins

Tilted ice

Curling in Nipawin on the decline, hopeful for season

Nov 5, 2021 | 9:00 AM

The curling season in Nipawin is to begin shortly, a few weeks after it would normally begin. Not only is it beginning late, but it is expected to also end a few weeks early, shortening the season by a month.

According to Mike McClelland, Board Member in the Nipawin Curling League, the sport isn’t really what it used to be in the area, it isn’t thriving anymore and is even on the decline.

He told northeastNOW it’s been tough to get people to the rink these past few years and the pandemic hasn’t exactly helped, especially when shutting some leagues down.

“Curling is on a bit of a downturn in Nipawin and I think it’s on a downturn everywhere. I don’t think curling is really thriving, anywhere. With the downturn in curling, we made it a four-month season, versus our usual five-month season. Also when the weather is nice outside, there’s a lot of farmers out, so we didn’t feel it was quite time for winter sports.”

There is some good news, however, as two leagues are set to return this year, but there is still one league that might not come back.

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“Every league goes once a week,” said McClelland. “We’ve started a mixed league in the middle of the week again, so we’re hoping to revitalize that. Juniors didn’t happen last year because of COVID but will happen again this year. We also used to have a real thriving afternoon seniors league, but we don’t know if we’ll even have one this year, it’s struggled in the past couple of years and we don’t have anyone to run it yet.”

According to McClelland, they’ve also had a problem when organizing bonspiels, however, they are hoping to have one this year.

“Hopefully we’ll have our annual bonspiel. People’s weekends have been so occupied, so we haven’t really been able to get people in for multiple spiels. It’s been a tough sell. We don’t own our own building like a lot of other clubs do, so we’re not having to host as many things to keep our doors open,” he said.

“We just pay our league fees to the town, so we don’t have the community rallying around the rink. There are a lot of small communities around that aren’t opening their ice because it’s too costly. It’s hard to raise those funds. We’re lucky enough that the town is still going to put on ice for us and hopefully we can get some bodies out there and get back to curling a bit.”

McClelland is hopeful, however, their mandatory proof of vaccination will make people feel safer and get their numbers back up to what they’re accustomed to.

“I think people are starting to feel a little more comfortable going out when everyone is vaccinated, so hopefully people will want to come and play because of that and get back doing stuff. Hopefully, we have a good winter, nice weather and get people out of their homes.”

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Ben.Tompkins@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter @BenTompkins_8