HOG LINE: Riverview Curling Club celebrating 50th anniversary

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This article was published 22/11/2021 (1467 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Normally, a sporting entity celebrating a half-century of operation is a cause for major pomp and circumstance.

However, the Riverview Curling Club is currently in a slight holding pattern as they look to mark their golden anniversary.

“Our current plan is to have a sit-down supper and banquet on Jan. 22 and we’re hoping to have a bonspiel of some sort involving the leagues that we have here at some point this winter, but it really depends on what the restrictions are at that point,” Anne Wright said on Friday morning.

“We’re kind of limited to what we can do right now, but it’s still being worked on as we speak and we hope to have a formal announcement soon,” Del Hunter added. 

“We’re curling though this year, which is a lot different than last year as we pretty much had our entire season dismissed due to COVID-19. When we started back up here in the fall, we had lost a few rinks, but it wasn’t as many as you might think as we all returned to play games here again.”

Although that portion of the 50th year is still up in the air, it’s an exciting season for longtime members of the club such as Hunter, Wright, Bernice Nerbas and Blaine Wakefield.

“I consider it to be an honour to be involved here for this milestone,” said Wright, who has been a member of the club since 1981. “It’s such a family club and there are so many people that volunteer here, it makes the bond between one another very close.

“I curled in Winnipeg before I started here in 1974, but this has become home for me, along with so many other people that have curled here over the years,” added Bernice Nerbas. 

Construction on the four-sheet facility started in July 1971, when curling at the Legion Club on 13th Street East came to end.

The first games at the new club were held in November of that year, with a grand opening taking place on Jan. 15, 1972.

“The first thing that we did was we went around and got 100 people to chip in $100 for memberships before we went out to borrow money and build the place, which was the only building in this area of town back at that time,” said Blaine Wakefield, who was one of the founding members of the club. “Everything that was done here, was pretty much done by volunteers, and it’s stayed that way to this day.”

“A lot of people that came here were from the Legion Club and when they decided they didn’t want to have curling there anymore for whatever reason, the curlers wanted to form their own separate club,” added Hunter, who has been a curler at Riverview for 35 years. “You had everyone coming together to help out, whether it be blue-collar guys or businessmen.

“I think the only thing that was contracted out was the concrete for the walls and the foundation. Everything else was donated by members or done by volunteers. That’s really something.”

In addition to having many players come from the Legion Club, their ladies league is also where they got the Riverview name.

“When the ladies league started there around 1961, they couldn’t have their own pins or anything like that, so they formed their own club,” Nerbas said. “From what I could determine from the ladies club minutes and from talking to people that were there at the time, they chose the Riverview name because the Legion Club was in the Riverview ward of the city.

“When they moved here, they brought that name with it. I know I’ve been asked many times why the club’s been called Riverview because there’s no river within two miles of the building.”

The volunteer aspect of the club has never stopped, especially as the years have gone on and projects have taken place, such as when a floor was installed in 1985 and when the building was expanded to include dressing rooms and washrooms in 2001.

“We’ve done the beef pit BBQ for about 40 years now and the calendar has been a huge fundraiser for us since we started that back in 1992,” Wakefield said. 

“This club has been built on volunteers and we still do a lot of it. I’ve curled here all my life and this place is like my second home.” 

In addition to offering ladies, mens, mixed, masters and junior curling, the club has hosted numerous regional and provincial curling events.

Their biggest competition was in April 2005, when the facility held the Canadian Masters Curling Championship, which was highlighted by Doug Armour’s Souris’ rink taking home the men’s title.

“I know there were a few people that didn’t think we would be able to pull that off,” Nerbas said. “Looking back on it now, I think we did an excellent job and that whole week went really well.”

While the club is looking towards the future and hopes to attract more younger curlers so that they continue to celebrate milestones in the years to come, their main goal at the moment is to salute those who are still around that helped get Riverview started in 1971.

“By our count we have 27 people that we have found, but some of them have moved away from the area and some of them are now in care homes,” Wright said. 

“We intend to honour the living founding members with a presentation of some sort during that banquet, but that all depends on where things are at when we hold the ceremony,” Hunter added.