Old Market Square outdoor rink up and roaring

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This article was published 24/01/2019 (2474 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Nothing beats brilliant sunlight winking off the Cube stage and ice as smooth as glass at Old Market Square.

Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman took up a curling broom Thursday at one of the city’s newest winter attractions: a rink located at the King Street public space south of city hall.

He had some big-name help, teaming up with Brendan Bilawka, Megan Walter and Colin Kurz (three-quarters of Manitoba’s winning entry in the 2019 Canadian mixed-curling championship), for a noon-hour match against a crew representing the Exchange District Business Improvement Zone.

Bowman joked he’d be excellent at taking the lead (the player who throws a team’s first rocks each end), and headed straight to the ice without making a speech.

It was -32 C under an extreme weather warning as the opposing teams lined up their rocks and started sweeping. A handful of spectators watched from the sidelines.

This is the fourth year Old Market Square has been transformed into an ice rink, and the second year the City of Winnipeg has made the ice.

“You’ve got to be a little crazy to do this,” chuckled Mike Del Buono, one of the masterminds behind the project and owner of King + Bannatyne, a sandwich shop on the corner that overlooks Old Market Square.

Three years ago, Del Buono and another Exchange-area business owner, Nick Van Seggelen, a partner with Bodegoes restaurant, marshalled their grit where their imagination led them: outside on some cold dark nights, readying the rink themselves.

“The first two years, we were out until midnight,” Del Buono recalled with a laugh. “We were the renegade crew working in the middle of the night.”

Van Seggelen agreed, with a smile: “You’ve got to embrace our winter. We’re in Winnipeg. You can’t hide from it.”

Exchange District BIZ members have assembled rinks in Old Market Square in the past. In 2000, it was popular winter hub.

The city took on the job of building the temporary ice surface as a pilot project in 2018, and now the rink is officially part of the city’s parks and recreation department.

“It was such a success, the city decided to maintain it as a pleasure rink,” said deputy mayor Vivian Santos (Point Douglas), bundled up in a parka, chatting as she watched the mayor sweep during the curling exhibition.

The curling competitors were dressed for the outdoors, wearing parkas and winter boots with solid treads, not the true curling footwear.

“It’s a little chilly out. Boots are way to go,” Kurz joked.

(The curlers weren’t the only ones wearing boots: the curling rocks were bundled up in protective polyurethane pockets.)

The rink will be maintained throughout the season. The Exchange District BIZ is encouraging curling matches Thursdays and ball hockey on Fridays.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca