LAC LA BICHE - While many kids in the Lac La Biche area are involved in various sports ranging from hockey and dance to swimming and soccer, very few of them push brooms down the ice or compete in bonspiels. The folks with the Lac La Biche and District Curling Club are hoping to change that.
Brenda Robitaille, a club manager and coach, said while the local sporting organization has a good number of adult curlers for the 2024-2025 season, so far this year, only a few youngsters have become involved with the sport.
On a typical year, Robitaille said, the club has around eight curlers aged 7-12 in the junior curling program. This this year, that number is lower. Junior curling nights at the Lac La Biche and District Curling Club recently started for the 2024-2025 season, and are held on Tuesdays from 4:15-5:45 p.m.
“The ones that come really enjoy it,” she told Lakeland This Week.
One of the reasons for this shortfall in young members, Robitaille continued, could be in the fact that most other sports that kids play throughout the winter months start in September and when curling season rolls around, they are already signed up for these activities.
“By the time we start, which is typically mid November, they’re already into so many other things that their parents don’t want them to go in anything else,” she stated, adding that the sport of curling is often overlooked in the wide lens of hockey and soccer. Furthermore, because their friends are involved and they are familiar with them, kids tend to gravitate towards sports such as hockey during the winter months.
“Unless their parents are curlers and watch it on TV, you know, then they have no exposure to it,” she said. “So, I think that’s quite a bit of the problem.”
According to Robitaille, each year, in a bid to garner more interest from local youngsters, the Lac La Biche and District Curling Club typically gets the word out around the community through area schools and other venues.
Kids who are interested in taking up or even trying out this winter sport to see if they like it can do so by attending the club’s junior curling nights.
During these sessions, Robitaille explained, young curlers are taught the basics of sliding and sweeping, and also participate in games.
“I always get them to practice their slide because that’s kind of the most important thing,” she said, adding that markers are placed on the ice for the junior curlers to practice sliding through. “We spend time practicing that which they enjoy…we make little competitions of you know, how straight they can come out…how far they can slide.”
As for why curling is good for kids to play, in addition to having a fun, social activity to be involved in with friends and family, Robitaille says it’s a sport that they can start at a young age and play well into their senior years.
“It’s the only sport that you can do your whole life, and you can do it with any members of your family, whether it be your grandpa, your dad, mom, your brothers, sisters…you can do it with your friends, and you can still be competitive when you’re old,” she said.
More details on the sport and information for young curlers can be found on the club’s social media pages.
