Full Yearbook - Manitoba Curling Association

y resby Coutts, CurlManitoba President
MCA Bonspiel celebrates 125 years
he Grey Cup has been an annual Canadian
t sports celebration for 100 years.
The Stanley Cup was awarded fi rst in 1893 and is
now called an annual affair, although in the early years
it was a challenge trophy played for more than once
annually. It also has not been awarded twice: 1919
due to the flu epidemic and 2005 due to the lockout.
These two Canadian Sport institutions may have
the greatest profi le these days but the annual MCA
Bonspiel had already been running for several years
when Lord Stanley presented hockey’s most famous
trophy and for over three decades when Earl Grey
provided Canadian football’s prestigious trophy.
And lest Manitoba curlers be too vain about the
long history of our bonspiel, it bears noting that
Newfoundland’s Royal St. John’s Regatta, which
dates to at least 1816 and was probably held earlier
than that, is North America’s longest running annual
sporting event.
Actually 125 years marks the 2013 birth date of
the Manitoba Branch of the Royal Caledonian Curling
Club (RCCC). According to the records, a bonspiel
had been held at Winnipeg for several years before
seven Manitoba clubs joined forces in an association
and at that fi rst meeting they resolved to hold a
‘grand bonspiel’.
The clubs included two in Winnipeg, Granite
and Thistle, and fi ve rural community curling
organizations. These were Stony Mountain,
Stonewall, Morden, Portage la Prairie and Carberry.
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CurlManitoba yearbooK – 2012/13