Banner year for Canadian curling governance

Exactly one year ago today, we posted this story on the first Canadian Curling Association NCC (National Curling Congress) helmed by new CEO Greg Stremlaw.

Another Congress has now come and gone, and today’s news release reveals that another $880,000 surplus has been committed to the long-term reserve fund.

“Financial performance is the item that stands out,” said Stremlaw, in an interview with The Curling News.

“This puts us at $1.7 million in accumulated surplus.”

Indeed, as the CCA newser mentions, a Senior Program Officer with Sport Canada noted that the CCA’s financial performance has been particularly outstanding and that some of the results are hard to believe, given where the organization was only a few short years ago.

There were tons of interesting presentations, workshops, breakout sessions, discussions and notices of motion throughout the week. Items catching our keen TCN eye include:

• a new “Curling For Life” document, which closely examines the “paradigm shift” between curling as a lifetime recreational sport and curling as a high-performance athletic endeavour;

• an embracing of new social marketing efforts, from Facebook to Blogger to Twitter and whatever techno-stuff is still to come;

• plans to “Leverage 2010” and thus ensure that curling clubs are prepared for an expected avalanche of phone calls, walk-ins and other outreach from the general public during February’s Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games;

• an “investigation of the possibility of establishing” a Canadian Mixed Doubles Championship;

• implementation of a single competitor’s fee, starting in 2010-11, that will allow competitors to enter all disciplines which require the payment of a fee;

• a Member Association code of conduct, that will be developed for presentation and approval at the 2010 National Curling Congress.

In terms of elections, 2008-09 volunteer boss Fran Todd of Ontario (CCA photo above) has been replaced by her former Vice-Chair, Graham Prouse of Grande Prairie, Alberta, who now serves as Chair of the Board of Governors. Jack Bowman (Victoria, B.C.) is the new Vice-Chair.

CCA Governors Lew Andrews (St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador) and Beth Sullivan (Bathurst, New Brunswick) have retired from the Board, while three newcomers are on board: Elaine de Ryk of Greenfield Park, Quebec, Ron Hutton of Saint John, New Brunswick and Georgina Granchelli of Sydney, Nova Scotia.

For his part, Stremlaw seems pumped about just how smoothly the curling landscape is rolling out before him.

“I am personally witnessing a collaborative spirit with the stakeholders,” said Stremlaw.

“Truth be told, it hasn’t always been this way. At times the sport can become political.

“We’ve got 14 member associations and they’re all diverse, all different, but there seems to be a genuine interest in working together, getting ourselves to where we want to go.”


Anything else, you ask?

• CCA Governor and longtime curling leader Bernadette McIntyre does have other interests besides the Roaring Game... such as her very cool job ...

• Monsanto Canada has renewed its sponsorship agreements with CCA through to 2013. The news release indicates that the Continental Cup, which will not be contested in the upcoming Olympic season, will return for another run of events from 2011, 2012 and 2013 ...

• Monsanto, of course, also supports western-based curling clubs through the “A Better House” grant program, which disbursed some $80,000 in funding directly to prairie clubs this past season ...

• Another curling mover and shaker has taken a step back from the sport. Fast Eddie Lukowich, the former Brier and world champion skip, has resigned his position with the United States Curling Association after nearly 10 years, and just eight months prior to Vancouver 2010. Canwest has the story here ...

• Winnipeg’s Jill Officer made a recent appearance in Thunder Bay, Ont. on behalf of Olympic sponsor RBC ...

• World Senior men’s champion skip Eugene Hritzuk is on the air via The Curling Show ...

• And finally, this brief YouTube video asks the question “What’s curling all about?”
Well, gee, didn’t you know the answer...?

The Sweeping Saga of Curling

Doug Clark is a talented writer – and very unassuming curler – from North Gower, Ontario, just outside of Ottawa. His work has appeared in The Globe and Mail and Maclean’s, amongst other places, and his 2002 book Dark Paths, Cold Trails was shortlisted for Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award for non-fiction.

Clark’s new book is all-curling, and in a big way. The Roaring Game: A Sweeping Saga of Curling has been published by Key Porter Books and is in bookstores now (also online here). It also gets a glowing five-star review from us, The Curling News.

Indeed, we need to acknowledge some bias here, as TCN Editor George Karrys has been following Clark’s stubborn and determined progress in getting this thing published – more on that in a moment – for years; in fact, he also wrote the forward.

An excerpt:

I still remember the day Doug dared to share his manuscript with me. After a voracious marathon read, I felt dizzy. The scope of Clark’s vision, the sheer size of the curling landscape he painted, was one of a kind. The book wasn’t about a famous athlete or a specific championship, nor a how-to guide, and not a purely historical tome. It was all that and so much more, delightfully bobbing and weaving among virtually every nuance of curling. This had never been done before.

Never before. True, Scott Russell (of CBC-TV fame) wrote a curling book of heartwarming grass roots stories. Doug Maxwell’s final two books were a) a fine summary piece and b) a long-awaited personal history. There have been countless how-to books for the hard-core curler, from Ken Watson to Paul Savage to Ed Lukowich, and now Colleen Jones. An ex-Toronto Sun sports writer named Jean Sonmor wrote a legendary tome about the men who competed at the highest levels (in the era of the 1970s and 80s). No less than nine – that’s right, nine – curling books were released last year. The Black Book’s attention to curling detail – including the statistical mathematics of the sport – are apt to cause dizzy spells (it’s coming, again, by the way). Even Warren Hansen has written an oversized “coffee table book” on the sport.

But nobody has ever thrown all that – and more – into a single piece of work. The ultimate, all-encompassing look at curling, spotlighting all that makes it resonate with the people. It’s all here: fun and fascination, humour, cleverness, Canada-USA-world, the stars, the unknown heroes, charity and celebrity, disabled and able-bodied, the glorious, historical past and the pop-culture present.

Regarding Clark’s stubborn zeal... here’s another excerpt from the forward, which also explains why this book deserves to sit on your shelf, and also that of friends and family.

Clark seems the epitome of a curler. He’s been trying to publish this book for years (curlers are a notoriously stubborn breed); he’s embraced and then broken up with two previous publishers (curlers are wont to change their team lineups as much as any freewheeling pro sport GM); and he tells simply wonderful stories (just park yourself at a table after a curling game and listen to the tales).

It must be said that the loving care this man has taken with our sport – in prose – means as much as the commitment shown by thousands of curling fans, players, administrators and volunteers on a daily basis.

Here’s the Key Porter page again, and the Chapters/Indigo page, too. Canadian readers are urged, as always, to choose Canadian retail sites – .ca as opposed to .com – to support your homegrown talent, and have your purchasing power count when the sales are tallied.