Saturday, January 10, 2015

Toronto offering outdoor curling

Ever played pick-up hockey on an outdoor rink? You know, you call the guys or gals and agree to meet them over at the ice pad? It's fun, sometimes frosty and truly Canadian.

Well thanks to the Toronto Curling Association -- which may be the most progressive and forward-thinking of any curling association in the land -- you can now call those friends and go curling. Outside. In the cold!

The TCA has arranged to put in three sheets of ice at two different locations and has a group of volunteers ready to help out. The kick-off is Sunday. Here's what's at each location:

2 Houses (the targets for the day)
16 Stones (state-of-the-art Light-Rocks)
8 Brooms (one for each player)
1 Portable hack (think starting block)
1 Rocks-Box (the steel lock-box for the equipment)

We'll see how this goes but I'd say it goes to one of the biggest stumbling blocks I hear about when people want to start curling -- "Where can I play?" So many wanna-be curlers think that every curling rink is a private club and they have no way of knowing how to get on the ice. Now they can in a fun way. 

Congrats to the TCA for this great initiative. 

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