Full Yearbook - Manitoba Curling Association

Curlmanitoba
President’s Message
here are historical references to curling being played in the Red
t River Settlement before Manitoba became a province in 1870.
The fi rst club, the Manitoba Curling Club was established in 1876.
However, the recorded history of ‘organized curling’ in Manitoba began
the December day in 1888 when representatives of seven clubs met to
form an association. Hence in 2012-13 we celebrate our organization’s
125 th offi cial season.
Over the years, the Manitoba Curling Association (now CurlManitoba,
originally the Manitoba Branch of the Royal Caledonian Curling Club)
has been recognized for excellence of our curlers, for leadership at the
national and international level, but perhaps most of all for running
the world’s largest and longest running annual Men’s Bonspiel,
which will also celebrate its 125 th anniversary in 2013. It is perhaps
not surprising the MCA Bonspiel is so closely tied to our worldwide
Resby Coutts
President
Morris/Fort Rouge
reputation. In their book, written in tribute to the 100 th anniversary in 1988, Morris Mott and John
Allardyce described the reasons for establishment of the organization this way.
“At their gatherings in the early to mid-1880’s, as well as in their local clubs, the curlers discussed
the possibility of forming an association for the West. It would become an affi liate of the RCCC
in Scotland – just as eastern Canadian associations had. Through that affi liation, western
curlers would be able to keep in touch with the parent body of their sport, as well as with world
developments in technique, equipment and strategy. More important, through an association,
western curlers would hold an annual bonspiel. Such an event would allow them to assemble
regularly for fun and good fellowship. It would also provide a means through which western teams
might show they could play their game as well as anyone, and thereby prove to themselves and the
world that the sport was well entrenched in the region.”
I think it fair to say the leaders who met that day (December 6, 1888) to formalize establishment
of the organization would say those objectives have been met. As we celebrate the 125 th bonspiel
in January 2013, there is no question that a very large amount of ‘fun and fellowship’ have taken
place over the previous 124 events.
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CurlManitoba yearbooK – 2012/13