(Photo courtesy/Melfort Special Olympics, Facebook)

By Ben Tompkins

Preparing for Nationals

Melfort Special Olympics hosts second annual Curling Fun Bonspiel

Nov 8, 2023 | 9:43 AM

For the first time since 2019, Melfort Special Olympics was able to host a ‘Curling Fun Bonspiel’.

Originally planned as an annual event, the spiel had to be postponed for four years due to COVID.

This past weekend, however, it came back and gave the local curling team a chance to compete at home.

“We don’t have a lot of Special Olympic curling teams in the province, so let’s give them some more exposure and more chances to actually play a game,” explained program coordinator, Tony Caissie.

As of right now, their curling team just practices on Wednesday nights, and can only really play games against themselves.

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During this event, a Special Olympics team came up from both Regina and Saskatoon, as well as three other non-special-olympic teams.

“Part of it was to promote the curling club, we’ve had really good support from the community, and again allowing our athletes to curl against other curlers and promoting the sport of curling within Special Olympics,” Caissie added.

“In the north, we are currently the only Special Olympic teams in curling, so hopefully, that would encourage other communities to actually try curling and get some athletes out.”

The hope is that this event will continue and only get bigger in the future, with the hope of increasing next year’s to eight teams, with some from Manitoba.

This past weekend also provided some good preparation for the Melfort curling team, as they are headed to Calgary in February.

Earlier this year, they punched their ticket to the 2024 Special Olympics Canada Winter Games, after winning provincial gold in Regina.

“It gives them a good opportunity to actually meet their fellow competitors, and gave them a chance to actually play against teams that they’ve already played against when those qualifiers happened,” Caissie told northeastNOW.

Other programs currently offered by Melfort Special Olympics include bowling and swimming, with summer programs returning next year.

Melfort Special Olympics also recently held their Annual General Meeting and according to them, they are doing quite well financially.

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