Curling season begins with a few new rules

The 2020-21 curling season began Thursday in Kelowna with excitement after a long layoff but uncertainty about what the coming year holds.

“The ladies we had on the ice today, they were all super happy to be back curling,” club manager Jock Tyre said.

“But what our numbers are going to be this year, and how are finances are going to go, it’s too early to know,” he said.

Last season ended about two weeks early with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in mid-March.

Since then, the club has been working with public health agencies to modify the game and adapt the building on Recreation Avenue in the downtown north end to the realities of life in a time of pandemic.

Some physical-distancing mandated changes to the sport: only one sweeper instead of two; teams can’t sweep their opposition’s rocks; and markers for people to stand on while waiting to curl.

Some changes to the building and operations: capacity to the upstairs lounge reduced from 460 to about 120; asking curlers to come to the building only 15 minutes before their game time unless they want to go to the lounge; ping pong tables and dart boards have been removed on the orders of public health; hand sanitizers throughout and collection of names and phone numbers for contact tracing in the event of an outbreak.

More than 1,200 people were registered for all the various leagues last year. For this season, Tyre is hoping to break the 1,000 mark.

“A day like this, when it’s kind of cloudy and cool, our phone’s been ringing off the hook,” Tyre said. “It’s when the weather’s great, that people are out golfing or gardening, that curling isn’t really at the top of their mind.”

Staff has been reduced from a normal year’s complement of 40 to 30 and new fundraisers, like an online 50-50 draw, are being tried to bolster the club’s bottom line.

In Kamloops, the curling club will be closed all season. In Penticton, club officials see something of a silver lining in the pandemic because many people who might otherwise have gone south for the winter will be staying home this year.

“The biggest difference is all the new people that are getting into curling because they’re bored,” club manager Chris Jones said. “I’ve got a ton of snowbirds. I’ve got a ton of newbies. They can’t do anything else. They thought, ‘Let’s curl’.”