Overview
On Wednesday, September 23rd the Roseland Golf and Curling Club announced that their Board of Directors had voted to cancel the upcoming 2020/21 curling season . From that moment, the curling community at Roseland has worked tirelessly together attempting to understand why this decision was made and potentially change the minds of the Roseland board members so we might resume our curling season.
Curling is an important winter recreational activity for the local community. There are more than 400 people who participate in curling leagues every year at Roseland. Curling Canada has outlined a safe route back onto the ice for curlers by way of their Return-to-Play Guidelines that can be implemented at Roseland to minimize the health risks posed by COVID-19. And, we wonder why other sports and activities around the city have returned but curling at Roseland has been cancelled.
The local curling community is motivated, dedicated and committed to seeing the ill-fated decision of the Roseland board overturned. Throughout the past several weeks we have organized and hosted a physical-distanced rally, conducted several virtual meetings, liaised with the local media outlets, engaged in a social media campaign, and reached out to board members to provide information about the sport we love and question why their decision was made.
As curlers we wonder why this board okayed golf but cancelled curling. On every occasion and in every response, Board Chair, Fred Francis has replied as follows, “the primary factor and concern remains the health and safety of our patrons, staff and the greater public.” Mr. Francis continues to be quoted in local media articles (please see Appendix A for a list of and links to recent media articles) stating that safety was the board’s primary factor when deciding to cancel our curling season.
We provide the following report describing all the advantages of the sport of curling and outlining in detail the reasons why we are certain curling can return to play in a safe manner. We believe the appropriate decision is to resume curling at Roseland and allow members to make up their own minds on whether to participate. We believe there is an obligation for Roseland to provide curling in the community, given it’s a public facility funded by taxpayers, and the only facility providing the sport within a reasonable distance that is not a private club. We implore every Windsor City Councillor to approve a motion to ask the Roseland board to reconsider their decision based on the justification we have provided in the report below.
About Curling
Wikipedia describes curling as “a sport in which players slide stones on a sheet of ice toward a target area which is segmented into four concentric circles.” Curling’s history dates to the 16th century in Scotland and was brought to North America by Scottish emigrants. The Royal Montreal Curling Club, established in 1807, remains the oldest active sporting club of any kind in North America today.
Curling is a lifelong sport that is enjoyed equally by both men and women. It became an official medal sport in the Winter Olympic Games in 1998. Today, three medals are awarded for men’s, women’s and mixed doubles events.