After several years of missing the house, it appears this year’ s Oilmen’ s Bonspiel was right on the button.
After several years of missing the house, it appears this year’ s Oilmen’ s Bonspiel was right on the button. In previous years, the event experienced declining participation and interest, but the 36th incarnation of the event brought in 28 teams from across the province to compete on the ice and socialize off of it.
Darren Happner, one of the event’ s organizers, was thrilled with the increased participation this year. He attributed the success to several factors, including the increased participation of younger teams and the popularity of the Saturday night social, a mainstay of the weekend-long tournament.
The Saturday night social included a dinner, variety show, live entertainment, and audience participation games.
“Basically right now our Saturday night is the pinnacle. No other groups do what we do. We have such a variety of activities on the Saturday night,” said Happner, adding that he had fun participating in the variety show as part of Saturday’ s entertainment. “To see eight guys act like a bunch of crazy idiots up on stage for the fun of it, you know, it just doesn’ t happen [at other bonspiels].”
Boyle resident Al Nikipelo competed in this year’ s Oilmen’ s Bonspiel for the first time in 10 years. His rink competed in the “A” division, and though his team didn’ t come out on top, the veteran curler was happy to be back at the event.
“I’ ve always been a big believer in the Lac La Biche Oilmen’ s Bonspiel... I know what it takes to run a Bonspiel and there’ s a lot of hard work involved,” said Nikipelo, adding that he was impressed with the ice at the Bold Center. “The ice in the complex is the best. The ice-making was very good.”
The bonspiel benefits more than just curlers looking for a fun weekend event - local community groups also reap the rewards of a successful event. Happner said the JAWS 2015 grad class, the boxing club, the Kinettes, and the Kinsmen are all getting donations from Bonspiel proceeds.
“Those four groups are all getting significant donations from us just for all the help they provided,” said Happner, adding that sponsors are a large part of what made this year’ s tournament a success. “It’ s pretty hard to do what we do... without the sponsors”
As for next year, Happner is unsure how we’ ll be able to top the success of this year’ s event.
“I’ m not exactly sure. I guess it will be more dance rehearsals and more planning,” he joked. “The nice thing is that we already have people telling us what they want to see [next year]. By hearing that from many different people... you can see that we’ ve built a big success and people are really buying into what we’ re doing.”
