Crokicurling has turned the genteel pastime of crokinole on its ear

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This article was published 04/02/2017 (3498 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock — to be more specific, a 19.96-kilogram granite curling rock — you’ve probably heard or read about crokicurling, the Winnipeg-born outdoor activity that merges the sport of curling with crokinole, a tabletop game similar to shuffleboard.

The brainchild of Winnipeg architects Leanne Muir and Liz Wreford, both of Public City Architecture, crokicurling — a tag the two women settled on after agreeing “curlinoling” didn’t exactly roll off the tongue — has been the talk of the land since the duo’s larger-than-life invention was unveiled at The Forks’ Market Plaza, on Jan. 25.

“The big news in the U.S. is yet another terrible executive order. Big news in Canada is #crokicurl,” tweeted Jeff Cooper from Kimberley, B.C.

“One of the most Canadian things: curling and crokinole collide, creating a new ice game in Winnipeg,” piped in Tom Cochrane (sorry, not THAT Tom Cochrane) of Gros Morne, Nfld.

Even the good folks at boardgamegeek.com, a website devoted to the fun things in life, sat up and took notice.

“I would TOTALLY try it!” a resident of Sun Valley, Nev., wrote in an online forum dedicated to Muir and Wreford’s handiwork, when one of his fellow “geeks” posted photographs of crokicurlers in action, including one of Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman, who, earlier in the week, popped by The Forks to give the game a shot. (After federal Health Minister Jane Philpott “liked” a pic of the mayor showing off his technique, Bowman issued a challenge of sorts, replying, “Let’s play a game together the next time you’re in Winnipeg.”)

“Sorry for making you wait; it’s been a crazy couple of days,” Wreford says, pocketing her cellphone before taking a seat at a long, social-style table inside her firm’s headquarters at 707 Sara Ave. “Yesterday, I was speaking to a TV news reporter whose station actually cut away from an interview with Justin Trudeau, just so we could talk about crokicurling.”

Directly in front of us is the decades-old, weathered crokinole board that inspired Winnipeg’s newest winter attraction.

“This board has been in my family for years; we had it on our old office and brought it with us when we moved here,” Wreford continues, running a finger along her board’s wooden surface. “Sometimes on Fridays, we stick around after work for beers and pizza, and bring it out (to play). At first, not everybody who works here was familiar with (crokinole) but now, they’re all totally into it.”

Wreford, who once introduced crokinole to a crew of hipsters living in her Seattle apartment block (“They thought it was the best thing they’d ever seen”) when she was living and working in that city, credits Muir for picking up on the similarities between curling and crokinole, and proposing a mammoth mash-up of the two.

“I was like, that’s exactly what we should do. How has nobody ever done this before?”

By now it’s been well-documented how, in June 2016, Muir and Wreford approached the management team at The Forks to float the notion of a ginormous crokinole board fashioned out of ice — the idea being that curling rocks would replace the wooden discs ordinarily used in the game’s tabletop version. The powers-that-be instantly fell in love with the pair’s plan and, for the next several months, worked with Muir and Wreford on logistics, figuring out everything from dimensions to rules to what size rocks to employ, in order to make the game family-friendly.

And while everybody associated with Winnipeg’s crokicurling phenomenon hasn’t been surprised by its runaway success, one person who was caught off-guard is Sherrill Calder, the registrar for the World Crokinole Championship, which, since 1999, has been staged in Tavistock, Ont., on the first Saturday of June.

“Accolades to everyone in Winnipeg who has been involved with this project; we’re just kicking ourselves we didn’t come up with it first,” Calder says, when reached at home in Tavistock, which she describes as being “the centre of the universe, about 10 miles away from Stratford, and about 100 miles from Toronto.”

“These past few days we’ve had great fun fielding all sorts of questions about our favourite game, as it relates to the new instant hit, crokicurl.”

What pleases Calder most about media inquiries from as far away as Europe and Australia is the supplementary exposure crokinole itself has received. Although the game has been around since 1876, which, according to Calder, is the year a farmer from Sebastopol, Ont., crafted the world’s first crokinole board as a birthday present for his five-year-old son, crokinole remains a regional diversion at best, she says. (Wreford concurs. As news of crokicurling continued to spread, messages appearing in her in-box gradually transitioned from “tell me more” to “I get curling, but can you please explain what the (bad word) crokinole is?”)

“Lots of news organizations that have contacted us are all of a sudden very interested in the history of the game,” Calder says. “And when they find out Tavistock hosts a world championship tournament every year, well, that just leads to a whole other set of questions.”

Justin Slater is the reigning world crokinole singles champion — a title he’s won three times, in 2016, 2015 and 2010.

Slater, also a three-time doubles champ, laughed when a friend texted him a picture of Winnipeg’s crokicurling “rink” last week — only because it wasn’t the first time he’d heard about such an endeavour.

“It struck me funny because my dad, who’s my doubles partner in tournament play, actually had the same idea years ago, but didn’t follow through on it,” Slater says, when reached at home in London, Ont. “I distinctly remember him telling me about it. It sounded interesting, for sure, but I didn’t know how you’d throw the rocks, because in curling you slide, but this doesn’t allow room for that, right?”

Slater, 24, figures he was six years old when he was introduced to crokinole. Sure, he whiled away hot, summer nights at the family cottage playing his two older brothers, he says, but he didn’t give the game any serious thought until eight years ago, when he caught wind of a crokinole club based out of Toronto.

“We played on Sundays and (2007, 2008 and 2009 world crokinole champion) Brian Cook was a member, too, so I got to play him a lot,” Slater says. “He taught me a ton about shooting technique and in 2010, while I was still in Grade 12, I was fortunate enough to win the world championship for the first time.”

Slater chuckles again when asked if has a training regimen, leading up to the world championship tourney, which draws competitors from all over the globe.

“Right now, I don’t even own a board of my own,” he says. “But right before the worlds, I’ll track (a board) down and put in a little bit of work. It’s a muscle-memory game, after all, and doesn’t require a ton of athleticism. I already know all the strategy so after a couple of hours of preparation I’m usually good to go.”

One more thing; because crokicurling is almost guaranteed to become an annual feature at The Forks, one of Muir and Wreford’s goals next winter is to pit a top-ranked curler such as Olympic gold medallist Jennifer Jones or defending Manitoba men’s champ Mike McEwen against the world crokinole champ, in a crokicurling match for the ages. If such a contest comes to pass, would Slater be interested in travelling to Winnipeg?

“Oh, for sure; I guess I’d better do my part, and win this year’s championship first.”

For more information on the 2017 crokinole world championship, go to www.worldcrokinole.com.

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca