Staff
Local curler Rob Sinclair recently received a honourary lifetime membership into the organization he helped found.
Sinclair officially received the honour here last month, but it had been announced by the Northern Ontario Curling Association back in June.
“It’s something I never expected,” Sinclair admitted.
Sinclair said his biggest accomplishment was to help set up NOCA back in 2007, helping to guide the Northwestern Ontario Curling Association (where he had served two terms as president) into the new organization.
The old NWOCA stretched from the Manitoba border to Hornepayne, but the newly-formed NOCA encompassed that area all the way to Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie.
After the formation of the NOCA, Sinclair stayed on as the Region 1 director for two years and also sat on the competition committee.
“The biggest challenge was putting the ideas of the three associations together to come up with one main idea,” he recalled.
“We all worked independently, but we had very similar rules.
“When you amalgamate three association, you think that some people might want to push more rules more than the rest of us,” he chuckled.
Much of Sinclair’s work came when he was living in Thunder Bay and working with the Fort William Curling Club, where he served as president for two years.
Still, after all of his work off the ice, Sinclair stressed what’s more important is the good times he and his family have had on it.
“It was a good family sport, and for what my family got out of it, I’m hoping I put in a bunch from my side of it,” he remarked.
Sinclair formally was presented with the award during the Fort Frances Curling Club’s registration night on Sept. 22.
