For those of us able to stand without slipping and falling on ice without a pair of ice skates, curling is one great sport.
Often derided by sports jocks as a sissy game, much like non-golfers do before they experience putting on a layered green after coming out of a sand trap, curling is much more than it first appears to viewers on their TV. Watching a match at a bonspiel or if you are really fortunate, at a championship that is now being played at Memorial Gardens, is quite exciting.
The recent curling matches at the Olympic Games have ignited more interest in the game. Even my barber in Florida was taken with it. I had to convince him that sweeping HARD could influence the speed and direction of a rock. That the rock weighed 44 pounds raised his eyebrows. I did not even try to explain about ‘reading the ice’, pebbling, Hog lines and the obligatory Bloody Mary at the Granite after a mixed match.
Back in my younger days, reading the ice was an art when curling at either the Powassan or the Air Base rinks. In the fall, the ice was level and true. However, as winter and frost set in both those locations suffered from ground movement and the outside lanes were wont to cause a rock to fall off the centre line. Local players soon learned to adjust to these small changes but woe to any skips who came to a bonspiel and thought his lead must be suffering from a hangover as the rocks drifted to the inside, away from the outside walls of the building.
Back in the late 1960s, I worked as the accountant at R.J. Minogue & Company on Hammond Street. We manufactured diamond drill bits and the portable Packsack Diamond Drill machine - along with other mining drill rods and equipment. Reg Minogue was an avid curler, as were his managers Al and Ron. Reg knew a quite a lot about the rock formations in Northern Ontario, and particularly about drilling holes into the Laurentian Shield. Curling rocks traditionally came from Scotland, which seemed to Reg like a business Canadians should tap into.
So Reg made inquiries, studied the qualities of a curling stone, and proceeded to make them on Hammond Street. Memory fails me a little but I think he found a source for his granite near River Valley. In any case, we were soon working to make curling stones. We certainly knew how to drill the handle hole with our diamond drill bits. Advice on cutting and polishing skills could be found at any of the tombstone makers in town.
The weight of a curling stone has some flexibility but ending up with a stone, handle and coloured top that weighed no more than 44 pounds was ideal. Lighter rocks were allowed but when you had to clear the house in a take-out, you wanted that 44-pound maximum.
We soon found out that our seemingly solid granite wasn’t quite the same as the Scottish stone. Hard to believe, but a slight porosity in the granite could pick up moisture as it traveled down the rink. Even the slightest change caused unwanted directional and weight problems. Then a couple of our test stones broke or cracked. The idea was shelved.
However one of our salesmen did come up with an idea: Why not make miniature curling stones as a paperweight or desk decoration? They could be inscribed with a company logo or name, or given as trophies or prizes. There was even an idea to use them in a new table game in bars, replacing the Shuffleboard discs, but patrons were wont to slip the nice rocks into their parka pockets. So we made a few 3-inch curling stones for staff. Mine is white granite and I remember to pick it up and dust it off whenever I hear Hurry Hard, Hurry Hard! Good memories.
I hope that some North Bay entrepreneur has made some miniature granite curling stones as souvenirs of the Championship. We have the granite.
