Friesen on the button — Curling season proceeding with caution

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/10/2020 (1914 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

While the 2020-21 curling season is full of questions, the most important one is answered: The roaring game is happening.

The Brandon Curling Club and Riverview Curling Club are set to open Nov. 2, with leagues getting underway that day.

“It’s very positive,” president Cory Lawson said following the Brandon club’s annual general meeting Wednesday evening.

“With everything that’s gone on this summer, Brandon seeing that second wave we saw a month ago, when we sat down at the end of the summer as a board and started making decisions, we didn’t know what it was going to be.

“As it turns out, we’re lucky. We’re recreation and it doesn’t affect us the same way it does other businesses.”

It’ll look far from normal, however, with plenty of COVID-19 guidelines to follow from the moment players set foot in local clubs.

At the Brandon club, broom holders and lockers are not being used and teams are to stay at designated tables to put shoes on and warm up. Masks are required in all areas except on assigned sheets and while eating.

All rocks are sanitized between games. During games or practice time, only one player may sweep during any given shot.

Curling Canada has videos at curling.ca/return-to-play on how to teams are to maintain physical distancing moving up and down the ice.

Practically, the game isn’t terribly different. But socially, the sport isn’t the same.

“The social aspect of the game is what people are going to miss the most,” Lawson said.

“There’s definitely disappointment and as a member of the board and president of the club, I look at it as we need to get the people out here curling to keep the club going because if we lose everybody we don’t have a club.

“This year we’ve got to forgo the social aspect a little bit and think about the curling clubs, go out and support the clubs.”

The canteen and lounge will be open with restricted hours and limited seating, though that’s one thing that might be impacted by tighter restrictions if Prairie Mountain Health returns to Code Orange or worse.

The Brandon club’s league play took a hit in numbers, and membership — the club’s main revenue stream — is down overall. The Sun Life Financial Westman Super League only had half its full slate of 12 teams on Thursday.

Brandon club vice president Shawn Taylor said it’s likely due to travel as most of the teams come from all around the region for the late Wednesday draws.

On the other hand, the Westoba Credit Union Masters Super League is set to open Nov. 4 with 24 teams, down just a few from 28 last season.

“They were some of the first ones that said ‘Yep, we’re running’ and just about got a full complement,” Taylor said.

“Over the last six months, people in general just missed the whole social aspect of life and they’re at a point where they’re going ‘I don’t care how restricted it is, I want to get out and do something. I want to get out of the house.’”

The Brandon club is allowing members to practise, but sheets must be booked through the club website at brandoncurlingclub.com. Personal information is required to allow for contact tracing in the event positive coronavirus cases come up at the club.

The competitive schedule around Manitoba is underway, including the Granite senior men’s berth bonspiel running today through Sunday. Regional qualifiers are set for December and provincial championships take place from late-January to March, including the juniors in Carberry Feb. 22-27 and club championships March 11-14 in Brandon.

The Grand Slam of Curling schedule was cut down to two events from six, but the Scotties Tournament of Hearts and Tim Hortons Brier are still on so far.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned amid the global pandemic, however, it’s not to expect tomorrow to look like today.

“All of that stuff, once those decisions are made (at the) top level start to filter down towards the club as well, so there’s more questions than answers at this time and we’re doing to take it day by day, week by week to see how we fit into it,” Taylor said.

“The main thing is there’s still a lot of uncertainty. Even though we’ve planned what we want for a season, Manitoba Health can still change what they’re doing. Restrictions can change, Sport Manitoba can change some of their restrictions … we have to be prepared for those and find out what’s going on.”

» tfriesen@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @thomasmfriesen