With the Tim Hortons Brier just around the corner, curling excitement is building in Kingston.
Canada’s best will be coming to town for the event, which serves as Canada’s national men’s curling championships. Things officially get underway on Feb. 29.
In our continuing series on local curling, Global News stopped off at the Cataraqui Country Club. Every Wednesday afternoon, a group gets together to curl —stick curl, that is. It’s a way to continue to enjoy the sport when you’re either getting older or less healthy. Judy Russell is a stick curler, she’s also a stick curling coach.
“Some people will take up the stick even if they’ve had recent surgery on a the hip or a knee or something,” said Judy Russell, a stick curler and stick curling coach.
Stick curling is similar to curling in terms of rules and gameplay, but involves delivering the rock down a sheet of ice with a stick from a standing position, rather than from the knees with a traditional slide delivery.
As such, it’s a game that appeals to those for whom mobility may be an issue.
“They don’t want to risk getting up and down just yet so they’ll do it,” Russell said of those who participate. “People that have had a career-limiting injury will take up the stick more permanently.”
Russell, who is a part of Cataraqui Double Stick League, says upgrades in equipment has been extremely beneficial to the sport’s popularity.
“With the newer sticks it’s getting easier and easier to just put that stick on the rock handle and walk away,” Russell said.
“A lot of the people played shuffleboard,” said Ron Brown, a fellow stick curler. “There’s not much difference and you can really get up the broom with it.”
Brown, a Kingston and District Sports Hall of Famer, says he plays golf in the summer, but stick curling is his winter activity.
“It’s good for people. If they’ve got bad knees or got bad hips, you don’t want to fall … but more than everything, it’s just something to get you going,” he said.
“And it’s fairly quick and I think you can have a lot of fun with stick curling.”
Russell says the use of the stick is becoming more popular.
“There were a lot of curlers in the early days that said ‘that’s not real curling,’ but more and more of them are recognizing that if they really want to curl still, there’s still the same strategy, you’re still part of the game.”
And don’t kid yourself, stick curling can be extremely competitive, with both provincial and national championship tournaments.