From: Patricia Proskurniak
Club name: Manning Curling Club
I am not a member of the Manning Curling Club, I am the Program Manager for Manning Regional Victim Services Society, located in Manning, Alberta.
Today, February 23, 2019 our Society hosted our Annual 2×2 Bonspiel at the Manning Curling Rink. Two adults and two children. If you can push a rock, even just a little bit, you can be on a team. We get children of all ages and adults of all ages. Teams can consist of parents with their children, grandparents with their grandchildren, aunts and uncles curling with their nieces and nephews.
Today was a bit of a challenge because we usually get 16 teams entered and sometimes even 18 teams. But this year we had 8. While this isn’t a fundraiser for our group, more of an Awareness Event, it was still a bit disappointing to get only half the teams we usually get. I was wondering about it and other people informed me that our small community had a hockey rink with games all day, 4-H was hosting a Speak-Off, and the high school was having a basketball tournament. Just simple bad timing.
So while the entries were down the level of fun was high! I looked around all day listening to kids really enjoying themselves. We have a jar filled with candies and the kids guess how many candies are in the jar. Once everyone has curled their 3 games we go upstairs and announce the team who had the most points, they won T-shirts donated by a local graphics business. Another local business covered the cost of lunch for the children from the food booth at the Curling Rink. This annual event is a real community effort.
Then onto the real excitement of who guessed the closest to the correct amount of candies in the jar! The excitement is real because the winner rides away on a brand new bike! This donated by another local logging business. The 2nd best guess gets the Candy Jar.
Everyone is tired at the end of the day but it really is one of those “good tired’s” and that was how we spent Curling Day in Canada!
