Students from schools across the city are seen Wednesday evening participating in the 60th annual Jam Pail Bonspiel at the Kinplex.--NEWS PHOTO BRENDAN MILLER
bmiller@medicinehatnews.com
Students in Grades 3-6 representing dozens of schools teamed up and took to the ice this week as the city celebrated its 60th annual Jam Pail Bonspiel event that encourages students and residents to try the sport of curling.
“Being able to come here and understand how scoring works, for example, and how do you play as a team,” says Rebecca Hirsch, recreation programmer. “It’s nice to see that people are getting into the sport and enjoying it.”
The well-known community event introduces participants to the basics concepts of curling with frozen ice jugs. Teams consisting of four students competed against each other for fun, and many teams wore matching outfits as their team uniforms.
Wearing hand-painted shirts featuring the scoring area in curling known as the house, team members from the “Button Busters” told the News they enjoyed participating in the event.
“It was really fun to experience it because we (got to face off against) our friends from school and we were all together.” says Eberle Cross, Grade 3 student at River Heights School. “I think that was really fun to do for my first experience.”
Grade 3 student Jackson Fisher played skip for his team, the Black Hawks, and compared his first experience with curling to hockey.
“I’m glad I’m with my friend because then if I wasn’t, it’d be a little scary,” he says. “But it’s fun on the ice for the first time with no equipment or helmet on, so I’m happy to play today.”
Teammate and Grade 3 student Lucas Leidal, who plays hockey with Fisher, also compared the two sports.
“While you don’t use your hands and you stand on your feet and you have no equipment, you have no stick and it’s heavy,” he says.
Hirsch says the annual event breaks down barriers of entry to the sport and promotes a positive atmosphere for students to experience curling for the first time.
“Obviously, you want to get the confidence to do a sport, and in a setting like this, where it’s fun and you have some friendships coming forward.”
Hirsch says the annual Bonspiel has become woven the fabric of the cities culture and spoke with aging adults who participated in the event when they were in grade school.
“We’ve had some grandparents come here that have talked about how they’ve done it, how cool is that? We have generations now that have come through this community sporting event.”
The ice at the Kinplex has been turned into 13 separate curling sheets for the two-day bonspiel that wraps up tonight as Grade 5 and 6 students from across the city hit the ice, including returning players from last year.
Following each student session the ice is open for the all ages category for all members of the community.
Approximately 600 students are expected to participate in the bonspiel this year.
