Oilmen's Bonspiel successful despite somewhat lower turnout

Even before it started, the annual Oilmen’ s Bonspiel promised to be a successful start to the local curling season.

Nearly 30 rinks from across northeastern Alberta, with a healthy supply of local curlers, spent the weekend throwing stones on the Bold Center ice. Oilmen’ s Association member Darren Happner says the bonspiel was three-quarters full before the planners even started advertising it.

The event has become a go-to for quality curling and entertainment because of the Saturday night socials that bring participants back year after year, he says.

“That’ s become a really big draw,” said Happner. “As far as we know, there’ s no other group in the area that does things the way we do. The actual bonspiel’ s almost a secondary activity,” he added with a chuckle.

Happner says the curling itself was entertaining, too, though. With 27 rinks vying for the top prizes, which included a trip to Las Vegas, the competition was good-natured but fierce.

“All the games were very close in the finals,” he said. “It made for good viewing.”

One of the B event winners, Bruce Adolf, has been a regular at the bonspiel for a number of years and he says it’ s a shame he can only give it five stars out of five.

“The association puts on a spectacular spiel,” he said. “I’ ve never been to a better one. Every year, there’ s no shortage of good times.”

The number of paid rinks was a touch lower this year, but Happner says the timing of the bonspiel likely had more to do with that than anything else.

“Moving forward, we’ re getting off the Halloween weekend,” he said.

The organizers, including Happner, had some misgivings when they were still in the planning stages, because they weren’ t sure how many sponsors and participants they could count on with the economy being in a slump.

“We were a little uncertain about how the entries would be,” said Happner. He went on to say the event sponsors held fast this year, which allowed the Oilmen’ s Association to keep entry fees at a reasonable level. “We couldn’ t do it without them,” Happner said.