Sliding into the 21st century

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/01/2012 (5205 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If news is the unexpected, then reporting that there has once again been a decline in entry numbers for the 124-year-old Winnipeg winter tradition that is the MCA Bonspiel would be a bit like reporting that every plane landed safely at the airport Wednesday.

It happened. But so what?

Here’s what: True, the entry numbers for this year’s bonspiel, which begins today at curling clubs throughout Winnipeg and the surrounding area, are down for the eighth time in the last nine years.

So that’s not news. But what is news is the bigger picture: With 352 entries this year — a drop of 32 teams from last year — participation in the MCA Bonspiel is now at its lowest level since 1966.

How long ago is 1966? Well, man had yet to walk on the moon, Trudeaumania was still two years away and the Wiecek family centennial project that begat me was still in its early planning stages.

A long freaking time, in other words.

Indeed, what is occurring in this year’s bonspiel is as historic as the bonspiel itself. Consider: Since the end of the Second World War, entry numbers in the bonspiel have been this low on only three occasions — 1951, 1952 and 1966.

Now, some of this needs to be placed in a broader context. Curl Manitoba president Resby Coutts has dug up some interesting numbers: In the 1960s, there were more than 350 curling clubs in Manitoba. Today, there are just over 100. In the 1960s, there were about 160 sheets of ice inside the Perimeter Highway. This year, there are about 90.

Against that backdrop, you could make an argument that the bonspiel is actually holding its own in an environment when there are simply fewer people playing curling of any kind. But it still begs the larger question: How come?

The bones of this thing have been picked over repeatedly in recent years and the only consensus is there is no single factor that has led to the decline in entries.

Part of it has to do with demographics — a lot of older fellows who first started curling in the bonspiel’s boom years in the 1970s are now reaching an age when it no longer makes sense for them.

Part of it is cultural — the idea of getting blind drunk for four solid days and driving all over town, once widely accepted with a wink and nod, is now just one step removed from hanging around a playground in a trench coat in society’s eyes.

And some of it is just a product of forever changing times. Curl Manitoba executive director Shane Ray noted Wednesday that one curler told him that his team had to skip this year’s bonspiel because some team members had season tickets to the Jets and there are a pair of home games this week — today and Saturday.

“There’s just no single reason,” Ray explained. “The bottom line is the bonspiel isn’t quite as special as it once was when people set aside this week on the calendar no matter what, where guys would tell their fiancées they couldn’t get married this week because they had to curl.

“And our challenge is to figure out how to make it that special thing again.”

There are two pieces of good news on this front. The first is that next year’s bonspiel is the 125th consecutive bonspiel and organizers are hoping that in itself will give the event a boost. While no one is expecting anything approaching the 1,280 teams that curled in the bonspiel centennial in 1988, there is some thought that a special anniversary and some extra organization could put some sparkle back on the grand old lady.

And the other piece of news? Well, I’ve got a little scoop for you — a 124-year-old scoop. You know how there has been talk over the years — particularly during the recent slide — that maybe bonspiel organizers should allow women to curl? And you know how every time it gets talked about, some of the older curmudgeons shoot the whole idea down and it goes away again?

Well, here’s the scoop — it turns out that there’s nothing, ever, that’s been preventing women from entering the bonspiel. You can look it up in the Curl Manitoba regulations and what you will find is that there is no gender requirement, whatsoever, to enter the bonspiel and, in fact, there never has been.

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Now, it’s too late to sign up this year but I am advised that if a women’s team enters next year, Curl Manitoba will, by necessity, have to accept the entry. Or, for that matter, a mixed team.

I will even sweeten the pot for you ladies: The first women’s team to enter next year’s MCA Bonspiel gets a story in this newspaper.

And so with that, the pool of potential curlers for next year’s bonspiel just doubled. And that, unlike all those planes landing safely at the airport today, is big news.

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca