Century-old Cypress River Curling Club folds

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This article was published 29/12/2022 (1010 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After more than a century in operation, the Cypress River Curling Club is no more.

Former club president Chad Cnudde recently delivered the news that the curling board decided to dissolve the club due to lack of curlers, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the absence of youth to replace older players.

“We did come to the decision to close out our curling club,” said Cnudde, who had served as club president for 17 years. “There’s not many young ones coming up that want to curl. I’ve struggled with numbers to start with, to get people to curl, and so we just don’t need to have an organization for it any more here.”

Cnudde said that with its closure, club funds were transferred to the Cypress River Rink Committee, which runs the local ice rink, and some funds will be set aside to help if demand for curling picks up and someone wants to create a club.

Rink committee board member Brad Anderson said they’re going to install two sheets of curling ice this year and its plans include a league of some form starting in the new year and a bonspeil on the weekend of Jan. 27-29.

“We’re going to try to keep things going,” Anderson said.

Cnudde estimates the curling club had operated for more than 100 years, but the number of curlers had shrunk in recent decades.

He recalls there being curling three nights a week with men’s, women’s and mixed leagues. Over time, the women’s and mixed leagues combined. Then, there was only a mixed league, which is the way it had been for the last 12 years.

The local bonspeil continued right up until January 2020, Cnudde said, but then the pandemic, and the restrictions that came with it, hit.

There was no curling in Cypress River for the 2020-21 season. Cnudde said he started to install ice for the 2021-22 season, and was just putting lines in place, when COVID-19 hit his own household.

With the curling sheets consisting of natural ice, the curling season in Cypress River only ran from January to March. Cnudde said by the time his family recovered and the ice could be finished, the season would have been too short to make it worthwhile, so for the second year in a row curling was cancelled altogether.

The pandemic dealt the club another blow. Cnudde said aging curlers who had stayed home during the pandemic didn’t start curling again when restrictions were lifted.

“They weren’t missing it that much,” Cnudde said.

While trying to get the 2021-22 season going, Cnudde had only 10 to 12 potential curlers, and some of them were only offering to take part to help out. None of those willing to curl were youth, so those who bowed out due to age weren’t being replaced.

Cnudde said quite a few youth were curling around the time he first became president, but lately there just doesn’t seem to be as many youth in the community in general. He noted curling doesn’t seem as popular as it used to be; and, if kids are more into hockey, that sport is time-consuming, leaving little time for curling.

A lack of volunteers was also a challenge, he said. Cnudde was tired after nearly two decades as president, which is a volunteer position — plus he has his own kids to take to hockey. He said he tried to find someone to take over but nobody was willing.

While the Cypress River rink wasn’t a member of CurlManitoba, that organization reports curling in general seems to be making a comeback from COVID restrictions.

“We’re still early in the season, from a membership list perspective, but compared to last year, which is great, what we’re happy to see is that the majority of our clubs are seeing actually more members this year than last year,” CurlManitoba executive director Craig Baker said.

The number of clubs in the organization has also remained steady at about 90, Baker said, and the level of participants in its junior programs are reaching pre-COVID levels.

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