Lucas Punkari
Friday night’s awards banquet at the Fort Frances Curling Club not only was the official end to another season, it also marked a year to the day that the club received funding to go through with its geothermal unit project, making this year a special one for club president Ron MacKinnon.
“Having to start the season a couple of weeks late was disappointing, but that was all part of the installation process to make sure everything was set,” he explained.
“We’ve had nothing put positive feedback from the members from the club in regards to the ice this year, and we’ve had no major issues with the unit at all,” added MacKinnon.
“So in that aspect, the year has been really good.”
In addition to the success of local curlers in provincial competitions, as well as hosting the Bantam provincial championships this year, one of the proudest for the club was when Devlin native and former Muskie skip Jenna Enge competed at this year’s Scotties Tournament of Hearts as the second on Tracy Horgan’s Ontario rink.
“That’s the one thing that really sticks out for us this year, and as a club we were really proud to see here compete there,” MacKinnon said.
“Having her going through and learning to curl here, skipping the high school team here, and then representing us at the Canadian women’s championship was a pretty cool feeling,” he added.
The one issue the club faced this year was in regards to overall numbers, which were down a little bit compared to the previous years.
“That was reflected a bit in our overall bar sales upstairs, and it was also reflected in the amount of teams that took part in our bonspiels,” MacKinnon noted.
“To have a lower number of rinks in our bonspiels again this year is a bit frustrating, but we have been able to sustain those events, so that’s a good thing,” he reasoned.
With the club already holding its annual general meeting last week, and the board staying intact for another year, MacKinnon will have a much more relaxing summer this year after working on getting everything scheduled for the installation of the geothermal unit last summer.
“Some of us at the club will have a chance to actually enjoy this summer instead of staying here and getting everything ready,” he smiled.
“For next season, we don’t have anything major that will be new at the club,” added MacKinnon.
“But we could receive a provincial event or two that we will be announcing here in the next couple of months, but we will announce that once NOCA [Northern Ontario Curling Association] gets their schedule for the year set in stone.
“We really hope, though, that the things that we have done this year here will really help us for the future, especially for those that want to rent out space here for summer activities like weddings.
“I don’t think there’s a bigger air-conditioned building in town that can seat the number of people that we can here,” he stressed.
