Another curling season is soon drawing to a close. As of this past Sunday, our weekly practices are over – and our last event, the K-W Granite’s Monkey Bonspiel, is coming up on April 9.
Reflecting on this past year, our Junior program at Elmira has accomplished a great deal. Let me summarize some of the more important accomplishments we made this past season:
- Our program grew to an unprecedented number of kids, a total of 51 (33 Little Rock and 18 Bantam/Junior). I sincerely hope that most of the children will be returning next year.
- I am very proud of the children’s accomplishments this year, particularly in how all of them have improved their technical skills:
- 12 Little Rockers and 4 Bantams earned their OCA Red skill level badge;
- 5 Little Rockers and 1 Bantam earned their OCA Blue skill level badge; and
- 1 Bantam and 1 Junior earned their OCA Bronze skill level badge.
- We established this website to convey information about the program, forthcoming events, and general information about curling. We also created a Facebook page that links to content on the Throwing Stones site.
- We modified the junior hack to properly mount to the side boards on sheet 1, which had been altered due to the new brine pipes that were installed over the summer.
- With donations from McDonald’s Restaurants and individuals at Elmira, and from Tournament Sports, we were able to purchase 16 new curling brooms, new heads for our existing brooms, and another set of Lite Rock stones from Canada Curling Stone.
- With the help of financial contributions from McDonald’s Restaurants, Bob Johnson Financial Planning, Adventure Guide, the Elmira Optimist Club, the Elmira Lions Club, and the Elmira branch of the Royal Canadian Legion, we hosted a very successful Elmira Junior Bonspiel with visiting teams from the Westmount, K-W Granite, Galt, Markdale, Fergus, and Glanford curling clubs.
- Our curlers participated in five bonspiels, with the K-W Granite’s Monkey bonspiel still to come. Our Little Rockers won two bonspiels – a first for any rink from Elmira – with wins at North Halton and Brampton.
- This season, our bantams participated for the first time in the Bantam Interclub series and played against rinks from Galt, K-W Granite, Guelph, Elora, Fergus, Orangeville, Shelburne, and Alliston.
All of this was accomplished with the considerable help of a few individuals that I’d like to thank: Marc and Jennifer Bernard, Dirk and Lisa Molenaar, Geoff Martin, Reg Domaratzki, John Moseley-Williams, and Clara Bean. Our program couldn’t run without their help, week in and week out. Thanks so much to all of you.
For next year, my plans include:
- completing the new Little Rock scoreboard to go alongside the rings in the middle of sheet 1;
- hosting a Bantam Interclub event at some point over the winter;
- organizing additional clothing items for purchase, including sweatshirts and T-shirts;
- scheduling exhibition games with Juniors from the Paisley curling club and Little Rockers from Oakville;
- increasing the technical ability of our bantam curlers to be able to field a rink in OCA Zone competitions;
- increasing our use of video analysis to help the kids master delivery skills;
- arranging for more photography of the kids on the ice to help promote the program.
I am delighted to discuss our program at Elmira with anyone, particularly with anyone who has suggestions about how our program can be improved. You can contact me by telephone, by email, the Elmira Junior page on Facebook, or of course through this website.