Gay curling event sweeps aside barriers
33 teams from seven provinces attend championships, bonspiel
A rainbow flag overlooks the sheets of ice at the Granite Curling Club, into which gay curlers from seven provinces and eight cities will march at 11 a.m. Thursday to the accompaniment of the Edmonton Police Service Pipes and Drum Band.
The city’s first and most historic rink is decorated with colourful streamers and signs are posted to welcome 160 participants to the four-day Canadian Gay Curling Championships and a concurrent icebreaker bonspiel.
The club on 107th Street a few blocks north of Whyte Avenue played host to the first national gay championships in 2005 without great fanfare. But that was a different time, before Reno, Nev., began staging pro gay rodeos, before the NBA’s Jason Collins announced he is gay, before the University of Missouri’s Michael Sam, a consensus all-American athlete, came forward as the NCAA’s first openly gay football player.
“We are thrilled about this,” Craig Ursuliak, general manager of the Granite Curling Club, which dates to 1920, said. “For us, it is another national event, plain and simple.”
The club has played host to Edmonton’s lone gay curling league since 1997, when Curling with Pride was established by a relative handful of like-minded people who felt uncomfortable participating in sports in public or had been mocked in mixed leagues.
“The league went through its hardships with discrimination, but with everything changing in the world we are up to 18 teams and expanding all of the time,” said Colin Rechlo, a curler on one of Edmonton’s three teams and the treasurer for Curling With Pride. “It’s nice that barriers are being broken.”
The teams carry handles as entertaining as Sweeping Beauties, Vicious and Delicious, and Curler Me Bad.
These are clearly folks unafraid to poke fun at themselves.
“We are trying to showcase that this is a gay event, but at the same time we also want people to know these are national championships with some pro-calibre curlers,” Rechlo said. “It is not going to be in-your-face gay, that’s for sure.”
The provincial government provided $20,000 in matching funds to help Curling With Pride host the event. A lengthy list of sponsors have also ponied up, including the Edmonton International Raceway, which is providing a ride in a NASCAR car as a door prize.
A Drag Queen Bingo is planned for Saturday, and awards will be handed out for the best selfie, best-dressed curler and the best bum.