ESTEVAN — There will be a definite emphasis on youth events this year at the Power Dodge Curling Centre.
A number of bonspiels and other tournaments are planned for the building this year, and there will be plenty of league play happening each week as well.
Estevan Curling Club manager Pauline Ziehl Grimsrud said a new compressor was installed in mid-September. One of the club's two compressors for the ice surface failed last fall, and while the club was able to complete some work on it to get it through the season, it couldn't be repaired, so a new unit had to be purchased.
"We have the plant up and going," said Ziehl Grimsrud. "We have sealed and flooded and painted [the ice], and … we put in the house logos and the lines."
The club hopes the first rocks can be thrown this week. Open houses are scheduled for next week. Regular league play is slated to start Oct. 23.
Leagues will include afternoon drop-in curling on Monday and Wednesday afternoons at 1 p.m., the Estevan Police Association's youth league at 6 p.m. on Tuesdays, the TS&M mixed doubles league at 7:15 p.m. Tuesday nights the recreational curling league on Wednesday nights, the open league on Thursday nights, and the seven-week Co-op kids' league for kindergartens to Grade 5s on Sunday afternoons starting Oct. 29.
The recreational league is called the Great Western Six-Pack League and has three sessions with six weeks of curling each. People can register for one, two or all three sessions. Drinks will be served after curling. Ziehl Grimsrud said there will be a weekly opportunity for a draw to the button to win prizes.
In terms of special events, the club has been selected as the host location for the Prairieland-Viterra-CurlSask youth camp on Nov. 16 and 17. A CurlSask recreational coaching clinic will be held in the evening of Nov. 16. Estevan will also host a stop for a U18 curling tour from Dec. 8-10; at that time, the club will also be hosting CurlSask U12 and U15 bonspiels.
In the new year, special events will include the Southern Plains Co-op U15/U18 bonspiel on Jan. 12-13; activities for Curling Day in Saskatchewan on Jan. 20; the school junior and senior mixed doubles playdowns; on Feb. 1 and 2; the high school senior boys' district curling on Feb. 15-16; the annual Slide into Spring fun bonspiel on March 8-9; and the Estevan Oilfield Technical Society's annual open bonspiel on March 22-23.
"Things might be added," said Ziehl Grimsrud. "We're talking with other people about maybe hosting things for them."
She said the curling club is pleased to have a lot of youth events.
"Last year was the first year we got on the U18 tour with CurlSask, and so now we'll hopefully be a standard stop," said Ziehl Grimsrud. "The Viterra curling camp, we hosted it for a number of years and CurlSask asked us to do it again, so that was an easy 'yes'. It's a great Saturday and the kids get a lot out of it. It's a good day. It just happened that's the way it worked. We were approached by the school division to do the other curling in February, so we said 'yes' to that."
The youth programs are filling up nicely, and the curling club has been reaching out to teams in its other leagues to get registered.
If people are looking to curl and they don't have a team or are missing a player for the upcoming season, they can contact Ziehl Grimsrud and she'll help them out.
The club is also taking bookings for private functions and Christmas parties, and they want to be a place for people who want to curl.
