A national curling championship at Saskatoon’s Granite Curling Club is allowing two teenage sisters a chance to show off their newfound skills this Easter weekend.
Kori, 16, and N’Tanis Wuttunee, 15, are part of the youngest rink at this year’s National Aboriginal Curling Championships. The two are from the Red Pheasant Cree Nation and have curled for only a year, but say it’s already a passion of theirs.
“My grandpa would always tell me how fun it was and I didn’t believe him until I tried it,” Kori said.
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The Wuttunee sisters are fortunate to have a chance to play this weekend; in 2013, the decades old tournament was cancelled and its future was in jeopardy.
That’s when the community of Île-à-la-Crosse took over the event.
“We figured, well, we should try to get an organizing committee together and make this tournament happen,” Île-à-la-Crosse Mayor Duane Favel said Friday.
“The youth play in this tournament, we have elders who play in this tournament, so it’s a good community event.”
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This year 32 teams will contend for thousands of dollars in prize money, however Favel said the most important outcome of the weekend is the support and encouragement young players receive from their elders on the ice.
“There’s no better place than the sport of curling to have the youth come together with the older people and some of our elders that are still willing to play,” Favel said.
“It’s nice to have our elders around encouraging our youth … not only in the sport of curling but in life, in terms of pursuing goals and achieving some of their dreams and aspirations.”
Both Wuttunee sisters said they hope the lessons they learn on the ice this weekend, will help them further improve at the sport they’ve recently come to love.
“I just want to keep on curling and making my family proud,” N’Tanis said.