The way 14 year-old Semen Kucher and other teens from Ukraine have taken to curling at the Lachine Curling Club, you wouldn’t think they’ve only been playing for a year.
“It’s cool,” he grinned after one game Sunday afternoon. “I love it, yes. I love it.”
He and the others who fled the war in Ukraine, are now members of the curling club, and they were good enough to participate in a tournament Sunday to help raise funds for Ukrainian refugees in Lachine.
“We still have newcomers escaping from the war in Ukraine and they need help,” club member Stephaine Berger stressed. “They need furniture, they need language courses, they need books, they need food.”
The goal was the raise $5,000 by the end of the day and the hope is that the tournament will be annual.
According to Berger, the event came about because of a relationship formed off the ice between she and Maryna Kucher a year ago, after the latter came to Montreal from Ukraine with her two sons, fleeing the war.
When the pair saw each other the first time, they hit it off.
“Stephanie gave me a big pack of flowers,” said Kucher smiling as the two recounted their first meeting.
“Yea,” replied Berger, fighting back tears. “I forgot about that. You’re going to make me cry.”
Their two families started spending time together and Berger, a long time curler, eventually got Kucher’s two sons, as well as other kids to join the club and learn the sport.
Because of that connection the club decided to hold the fundraiser.
“A hundred percent of the benefit is going to go to Ukrainian aid,” said Pierre Ferland, president of the day curler’s group at the Lachine club.
Sunday’s fundraiser also included a dinner and party and Kucher and other women from Ukraine are doing the cooking, as a way for them to say thanks for the help they and other refugees have received from the community.
On the menu — Ukrainian cuisine including borscht which club members will help to prepare.
To make the borscht, Kucker even got some help from her mom all the way in Ukraine.
“I called her to tell me how to prepare it, and she told me by phone,” she laughed.
Both Berger and Kucher say they’re grateful for their friendship, something they foreseen lasting well beyond the war.