Western Financial Place was a hive of activity on Monday, Jan. 27 as final preparations were made for the 2020 BC Curling Championships and players began arriving and taking to the ice for some practice.
“They’re testing each individual ice sheet to get different speeds and everything else,” said Cranbrook Curling Club president Rick O’Neill. “The excitement’s building, we’ve picked up all the players, the banquet is tonight for all the players and people are still buying tickets quite a bit. So it’s looking great, practice is going really well so far.”
The nearly week-long event kicks off on Tuesday, Jan. 28 and tickets are still moving, according to O’Neill. Ticket information can be found online at www.westernfinancialplace.ca and www.curlbc.ca
To test out the ice and rocks, O’Neill said the volunteers faced off against the pros.
READ MORE: BC Curling Championships set for action in Cranbrook
“That’s why we’re not at their level — the volunteers, again we have a lot of fantastic curlers and we can see that these provincial teams are a step up from us and they know how to do it where we don’t but it was fun,” he said.
“It was great and it was nice to see because most of them that played were ice makers and to see how ice was made different at the next level and so we can incorporate that into our club, we have a representative from Fernie who’s helping out on the ice and he’d learned a lot too, so you know what it’s great that the ice makers that are involved helping volunteering are seeing what we can do to make our clubs better.”
The action begins at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 28 at Western Financial Place.
paul.rodgers@cranbrooktownsman.com
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