The shoe still fits
Horseshoe club keen to attract new members to keep sport alive
It was the summer of 1984 when Tammy Christensen and her mother, June Norvila, saw an ad in a newspaper about a game of horseshoes happening in the nearby town of Bentley, Alta. After playing just one round, Christensen knew she was hooked.
“We joined the club and I’ve been pitching ever since,” said Christensen in a recent interview.
Thirty-five years later, Christensen is now president of Horseshoe Saskatchewan’s Regina club, which has about 19 members who practice weekly at the horseshoe pitch in Kiwanis Park.
Despite horseshoes being not quite as well known as other sports, Christensen said lots of people still play recreationally all across Canada and in leagues like the one in Regina.
“I think it’s a great sport for life that you can use,” she said. “It’s a very inexpensive sport to join.”
She admits she gets interesting reactions when she tells people she’s in a horseshoe league.
“They ’re surprised that we actually have … a competitive organization,” she said.
Anyone, she said, can get involved with the sport — and the Regina club is proof of that. It has a member who is just 10 years old (her daughter, Cassandra) and a member who is almost 80.
“It’s teaching some good throwing skills,” Cassandra said in a recent phone interview from Alberta. “It’s also teaching good sportsmanship.”
The game involves competitors throwing a horseshoe toward a metal peg attempting to score a “ringer,” in which neither of the ends of the horseshoe touch the peg when it hits it. Being a bowler as well, Cassandra sees similarities between that sport and horseshoes.
“Trying to get a strike (is) kind like trying to get it on the peg,” she said.
The sport allows people to play against those who are at a similar skill level, not necessarily the same age.
“I usually end up playing adults who are in the same throwing category as me,” said Cassandra, adding she doesn’t feel intimidated playing against older competitors.
Tammy, along with seven members from the Regina club, recently returned from a national horseshoe tournament in Brampton, Ont. Two of those who competed are Christensen’s sons — 13-yearold Garrett and 15-year-old Brayden — who placed third and second in their respective categories.
The club gets some funding through Sask Sport and does fundraising through raffles and battery recycling drives. Getting people to play the sport, Christensen said, is done mostly by word of mouth.
“There are so many sporting choices out there for people and … we’re not a large sport with a lot of funding so our ability to do advertising is fairly limited,” she said.
“I know most of the members, everywhere they go they talk about horseshoes. In the Regina club we’ve got a couple of new members that they’re very good at approaching anybody they happen to see at the horseshoe pitch.”
Dianne Galandie is one of those members. She and her husband, Dean, have played professionally for only a few years now, but have helped restore the Kiwanis Park site by getting the City of Regina to add sand to the pitch, add a table and garbage can and install a new club sign.
“You can play from anywhere from eight to 95, so we are losing a lot of players because … they grow old and they pass on,” she said.
The club, however, has recently signed up a few new members and they’ve even had interest from community members looking to have birthday parties at the pitch.
Galandie is also encouraged by efforts from Saskatoon’s club to bring horseshoe lessons to schools there.
Horseshoes, for her, offers an escape from everyday life.
“It’s rewarding,” she said. “Your worries go away … and you’re just enjoying being outside. The birds are chirping, (the) sun is shining.”
Tournaments between the Saskatchewan clubs are held almost every weekend between May and August.
Galandie said she and her husband try to attend every one. Their horseshoe excursions have taken them from Manitou Beach to Prince George, B.C. to a world championship in St. George, Utah.
“We take our shoes everywhere we go,” she said. “We’ve taken them to Cancun, to Acapulco (and) to Puerto Vallarta. There’s nothing like playing horseshoes on the beach.”
Even though the taste of victory may be sweet, the end goal, said Tammy, is having a good time.
“We don’t take each other so seriously that we have any nasty rivalries and it’s a really great way to meet new people.”