Strathmore Bonspiel draws great crowd

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Adelle Ellis
Times Reporter

 

The Strathmore Curling Club had 25 teams participate in their annual mixed bonspiel from Jan. 24-29, three more teams than those who participated in 2016.
“This is a great turnout, we are super happy about this,” said first time organizer, Randy Sander.
The mixed bonspiel has been around as long as there has been a curling club in Strathmore.
Teams from Strathmore as well as Calgary, Chestermere, and even Edmonton came out to participate in the bonspiel.
“We had a lot of sponsorship, around $15,000 in sponsorship from our local businesses,” said Sander adding that around 46 local businesses donated anything from a door prize up to $1000 for the bonspiel.
Some features of the bonspiel included a 300-number draw board with $5,000 worth of prizes to be won from it. Sponsored door prizes including a wine fridge full of 18 bottles of wine, a wine basket, a wine holder, and a John Deere gift basket were all donated. $6,000 in prize money was also handed out to the curlers.
“We couldn’t do this bonspiel without the support of our local businesses, all we can do is thank them because they are the real reason we are able to put this on,” said Sander, also saying that he encourages even more businesses to donate in the future as it helps the curling club and is good exposure for the businesses.
There were four junior curlers and one junior spare entered into the bonspiel as well, which is impressive considering half of them made it to the finals.
The finals were especially exciting as in two of the pools, the winners came down to the last thrown rock, and the B pool went into an extra end because it was such a close game.
Winning teams include:
A pool – Garnett team. Lead Jacqueline Wegener, second Matthew McDonald, third Trisha Kloschinsky, and skip Scott Carnett.
B pool – Clark team. Lead Bev Shaw, second Brent Ashlee, third Joanne Clark, and skip Stu Shaw.
C pool – Luyten team. Lead Sue Derbyshire, second Mark Zimmerer, third Judi Sommerville, and skip Fred Luyten.
Chinook Financial also teamed up with the curling club for the bonspiel, and for every person to register online, Chinook Financial donated $10 towards Strathmore Curling Club’s junior program.
“We have a very strong junior curling program. Junior curling is the future of any curling club, you must grow those young people, get them interested and keep them interested,” said Sander.
“We have a lot of good strong coaches teach them and we are looking forward to the future of the Strathmore Curling Club.”
“Should be positive for many years to come.”