INNISFAIL – Ice making czar Lowell Peterman was busy taking the ice out of the Innisfail Curling Club last week and while a certain amount of sadness is bound to come for any season’s end there was a lot to celebrate.
Despite another year of COVID, Peterman said overall it was a good season, with most of the club’s social, recreational and competitive events going ahead, despite 25 to 30 per cent of the membership taking a pass this year because of the pandemic.
He said the club had about 175 curling enthusiasts registered this past season, compared to 230 or 240 in past non-COVID seasons.
Financially speaking, Peterman said he’s not seen the books yet but concedes the club’s revenues will be “down a bit” but quickly added the events they were able to put on were well received and everyone is now looking optimistically ahead.
“We can only look forward to the future and have it (membership) increase. I think we will,” said Peterman, who is also the club manager of the Innisfail Curling Club.
“I think everybody that registered this year was certainly pleased with the operation, and I think we will gain back that 25 to 30 per cent that we lost this year,” he added, noting a portion of the season’s early membership losses were made up when the province began pulling back its pandemic restrictions, including the Restrictions Exemption Program, in February.
The club was able to hold a bonspiel and some members returned.
“I believe our bonspiel was successful. They seemed to enjoy themselves and we hope they will come back next year,” said Peterman.
However, the annual Innisfail Farmers & Farmerettes Bonspiel was cancelled again and the club did not have a Mens Open. Even still, the club can rightfully claim success for the 2021-22 season as it met all obstacles head-on.
The club was able to host a successful senior mens qualifier for the senior mens provincial tournament in February, as well as a U15 bonspiel late in 2021 and a U21 mixed doubles bonspiel in March.
There was also the club championships, which wrapped up on March 31.
Team Peterman, which includes Lowell Peterman, Fred Armstrong, Dough Schaefer and Rees Thomas, are this year’s Men's Club champions.
On the ladies’ side, Team Schmidek was crowned winners of the Ladies Club Championship. The team includes Brenda Schmidek, Jill Wagers, Kendall Rutherford and Candice Schmidt.
The Mixed Club Championship for this season goes to Team Bennett, which includes Tyler Bennett, Jill Wagers, Brody Nestorvich and Brenda Bennett.
“We survived the season. We hope to make it better next year,” said Peterman, adding his club also introduced the new Open Funspiel, which ran from March 25 to 27 with no gender limitations.
“Typically, at the end of March we have a windup bonspiel but it’s always mixed,” said Peterman. “We just decided we would gain a lot more entries if we didn’t keep it to specifying that it had to be two female and two male curlers, so we had teams where grandparents were bringing in their grandchildren, and families curling together.
“It was just a way more open format, and that’s why we had a pretty successful event,” he added. “I think it is going to be an annual thing.”
Peterman said the club is also hoping to make the roaring game more open to new curlers as well, and there could be a Learn to Curl Clinic or a Beginner League offered next season.
“There seems to be quite a bit of interest with people wanting to learn how to curl,” said Peterman. “I think that was brought on by the Olympics and we hope to capitalize on that.”
