Curling centre long overdue

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/03/2016 (3485 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There are a handful of things Manitobans do better as a collective group than anyone else in the world.

We rule at winter, obviously, having long ago figured out how to actually live through the coldest winter months, instead of just surviving.

We’re spectacular at paying wholesale prices for retail items. Feel sheepish asking a store clerk if you can get a better deal than what’s on the price tag? Then you ain’t from here. And, frankly, we don’t need your type. You’re driving up the prices for the rest of us.

And, finally, we’re amazing at curling. Duh, right?

So how is it then that it took until Tuesday afternoon for someone to propose, as the provincial Tories did during an election campaign announcement at Rossmere Curling Club, the establishment of an international curling centre for excellence right here in the de facto world headquarters of the sport?

No one, anywhere, has more curling clubs than we do here in Manitoba: 114. No one, anywhere, has more recreational curlers than we do here in Manitoba: lots. 

And, while the rest of the country — and the world, for that matter — has closed the gap in recent years, I’d argue that we also still have in Manitoba the largest single collection of elite curlers anywhere in the world.

Add to that the province’s geographical location in the centre of the country and it makes such perfect sense to have a curling centre here that, frankly, I’m amazed a politician thought of it.

Because, let’s face it — it also makes perfect sense to have a provincial casino at a thoroughbred racetrack that was the birthplace of legalized gaming in this province. And yet the NDP instead spent the better part of the last four years almost bankrupting Assiniboia Downs, finally capitulating only in the face of a lawsuit from the Manitoba Jockey Club that the province was likely to lose.

So yeah, politicians and great ideas — a rare combination in these parts.

But if any politician were going to pitch an international curling centre, it makes sense it would be the Manitoba Progressive Conservatives, a party that has a long history of embracing washed-up curlers as leaders.

Consider: the last two Manitoba Tory leaders — Brian Pallister and Hugh McFadyen — were both former Manitoba curling champions.

Pallister skipped a team to a Manitoba mixed curling championship back in 2001. Yes, mixed is to curling what cribbage is to chess, but hey, what have you won lately?

And McFadyen skipped a Canadian junior champion squad out of Assiniboine-Memorial  back in 1986. The third on that McFadyen team? Some clown named Jon Mead.

So, yeah, Manitoba Tories and curling.

Look, I’ve got no dog in this provincial election fight. Vote for whomever you want — I am genuine when I say I couldn’t possibly care less.

But an international curling centre in Manitoba is a great idea no matter what your political leanings.

What the Tories are proposing is to partner with Curl Manitoba, Curling Canada, the World Curling Federation and the Canadian Sports Centre to create a world-class world headquarters for all things curling.

The Tory proposal comes at the same time as Manitoba is about to lose the national women’s volleyball team program that called Winnipeg home for over 20 years. The announcement last month that the volleyballers were moving their national program to B.C. means that for the first time in decades, not a single national team of any kind currently calls Winnipeg home.

That’s a joke. And it’s an insult to the rich legacy of Olympians that come from this province, beginning — but certainly not ending — with six-time Olympic medallist speedskater Cindy Klassen.

And it’s also an insult to Manitoba curling that curlers in Alberta have access to nearly year-round ice at a national training centre at Edmonton’s gorgeous Saville Centre, but curlers in Manitoba don’t.

Ponder this: Alberta men have won seven Briers — compared to just one for Manitoba — since the Saville Centre opened in 2003. Coincidence?

The details underlying the Tories curling centre announcement are predictably sketchy. Trivialities like “what?,” and “how much?” are mostly glossed over in a one-page news release the party sent out Tuesday afternoon to coincide with Pallister’s announcement.

Let me offer a few suggestions then:

What? Don’t just slap it into an old existing club. Technology has become a huge part of curling — witness the now banned “Frankenbrooms” that roiled the sport this winter — and you need a new state-of-the-art facility with all the fanciest tech.

I’m hearing the Tories are considering perhaps making the facility part of the gorgeous sports and recreation multiplex in Portage. That could work. But wherever you put it, add a wing and also make it the long-awaited permanent home of the embarrassingly homeless Canadian Curling Hall of Fame. I’d buy a ticket.

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How much? Whatever it takes. What do I care, it’s not my money.

Hey, it’s an election — no one ever lets facts get in the way of a promise.

But unlike a lot of the election promises you’ll hear for the next few interminable weeks, this one actually is a good one. 

email: paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek