The Dominion Curling Club Championships, Year Two

I had the most astonishing conversation with a fellow curler at my club after our Wednesday night game last week.

“What’s that?” she asked when I waxed enthusiastic about the team who would be representing our club (Guelph Curling Club) at the regional playdowns of the Dominion Curling Club Championship this weekend.

“What’s the Dominion Curling Club Championship?” she asked when I mentioned this team, as well as another curler we both know who would be competing across town at the men’s playdowns.

She had no idea what the championship was all about.

Really?

“I guess you have to be an avid curler to know about this stuff,” she remarked, which is where the astonishment kicked in, because this woman is definitely what I would call an avid curler. She’s on the club executive, volunteers for all events, curls and bonspiels regularly.

How could anyone NOT know about the Dominion?

It’s Year Two of this initiative, sponsored by The Dominion of Canada General Insurance Company, to offer club curlers a chance to compete for a national championship. We’re talking airfare, hotel, pipe bands, uniforms, provincial and territorial banners – and bragging rights to the kind of national curling prestige normally reserved for the Brier or Scotties.

Last year, two teams from Ontario took home the championship plaques: Robert Stafford’s team from the Chatham Curling Club, and Kelly Cochrane’s team from the High Park Curling Club.

You can read about this year’s event in the season’s first print issue of The Curling News (and I know this because I wrote the article!). You can also check out The Dominion’s site which has news and photos from the inaugural event last year, and follow the event on Facebook (look for the link at the bottom of The Dominion Curls homepage).

In any case, club curlers across Canada should get informed.  Here’s a curling event that could take you – yes, you! – out of your club and drop you in the middle of a national championship, providing the experience of a lifetime (not to mention, lots of swag).  You don’t have to be an “avid” curler to know about it – just a curler.

The Dominion Curling Club Championship takes place November 23-28, 2010 at the Charlottetown and Cornwall Curling Clubs in Prince Edward Island. Grassroots Curlers, pay attention!