Jamie Mountain
Lloyd Stansell has had a long and distinguished career as an ice-maker and recently was in Fort Frances to lend his wealth of knowledge at the local curling club as they prepare to get the ice ready for another great season.
Widely considered a legend and innovator in the field of ice-making, the 83-year-old started his career at his hometown Red Rock Recreation Centre in 1958 and has never looked back, going on to provide consultation to curling rinks all across northwestern Ontario and being called upon from the provincial to the world level.
Stansell has served as an ice technician at events such as the Brier, Scotties Tournament of Hearts and World Championships, from the 1980s to 2000s.
“It’s been a good life, it took me to a lot of places in Canada that I would’ve never gone [otherwise],” he said of his career during an interview with the Times at the Fort Frances Curling Club on Monday morning.
“I can’t really think of one event that would be better than the other one, actually. It was basically the same type of work but in some cases you run into a little bit of problems which, you know, you have to fix up.
“Basically to do these ice-making things, it’s just one thing after another and sometimes you run into maybe some problems where you have a breakdown of a piece of equipment, but that doesn’t happen very often,” he added.
Stansell and his crew used to convert the local hockey arena ice into curling ice every spring for the famous Red Rock Men’s Bonspiel. Word soon got out that it was some of the best ice around to curl on and every year the bonspiel grew.
At its peak there was over 80 teams. It wasn’t long after that the mill in Red Rock (Domtar) started the annual Domtar Bonspiel, which attracted many family teams and provided the opportunity for many young curlers to develop their talents.
Some of those young curlers were Al Hackner and Heather Houston, both of whom went on to be world curling champions.
One of the things that Stansell is most proud of during his storied career was spearheading the invention of the wool that is used for painting lines on the curling ice.
“The wool that you see pulled across the rink and they use it for lines, I was the one that invented the wool,” he explained.
“It was in Red Rock, when we were working there, we used to put butcher cord in and spray it and let it sit, but we’d have to hold it here for quite a while because it didn’t absorb water.
“So one day my wife, she knitted a lot, and there was one of the big rolls of wool sitting on the cupboard, she just left it there,” he added.
“So I said ‘Could I take that with me to work? I gotta try something.’ She said ‘sure, not a problem’.
“So I took it in to work and my buddy and I, we got the spray bottles, stretched that across and just sprayed it and it soaked right away and froze,” Stansell continued.
“I went and bought some more wool and we did the whole rink, a three-sheet rink.”
All of his dedication and innovation to the craft hasn’t gone unnoticed, as Stansell was presented with the 2019 NOCA Ice Technician award at the Northern Ontario Men’s and Women’s Provincial Curling Championships held back in February.
The ice-making wizard also will be enshrined into the Northwestern Ontario Sports Hall of Fame this Saturday in the “builder” category during ceremonies held at the Valhalla Inn.
It’s an experience that Stansell is humbled by and is looking forward to.
“I’m surprised that it happened, I guess, really,” he said of learning he had been named an inductee to the hall.
“I have a lot of family members . . . my sister, in fact, is coming from Burlington, they’re making a trip just especially for that night.
“And there will be people there that maybe I haven’t seen for a while, and locally too. I’m a little bit nervous,” he admitted.
“I’m supposed to prepare a little bit of a speech, so to speak, for three minutes or something. My son is doctoring up something for me, so he’s taking care of me for that, I guess.
“I’ll have to check [the speech] out, but we’ll see what happens,” Stansell smiled.
