6. Insurance and Waivers

Katherine Henderson, CEO of Curling Canada, states, “there IS a path forward as we plan for curling (this coming) season, and (Curling Canada) can play a role in bringing curling back to Canadians.”

It should be noted that curling is a non-contact sport that is played on a 144-foot sheet of ice. Under Curling Canada’s return-to-play guidelines, there would only ever be 3 players in the “act of curling” at any time during a game: the stone deliverer, a single sweeper, and the skip. And, each of these three players would always wear masks and remain more than 6 feet from each other throughout the shot. The other participants in the game would be positioned at “safe” places marked on the ice to ensure social distancing.

Roseland Proposal

It’s our understanding that Roseland staff, using the Curling Canada return-to-play guidelines as a starting point, worked together with the Windsor Essex County Health Unit to develop a plan for resuming curling at Roseland that was turned down by the board. Unfortunately, no-one from the local curling community was consulted during the board’s decision-making process and there are no active curlers on the Roseland board to assist with their decisions.

We are wondering what items were missing from the Roseland proposal that rendered it not safe enough for the board? And, was any consideration given to recommending changes to the proposal that might have led to a different decision? For example, we could also suggest the following measures be adopted to further decrease COVID risks during curling:

We have stated many times that the curling community is very happy to work together with the board to implement whatever strategies they deem necessary to alleviate their health and safety concerns.

Most curling clubs across Ontario are in the process of reopening under Curling Canada return-to-play guidelines, including clubs in Essex county at Beach Grove in Tecumseh and Sun Parlor in Leamington. We understand that the Roseland proposal included far more stringent restrictions than these clubs and the Roseland facility is unique in that it offers far more advantages, due to its size, than these other clubs in terms being able to adhere to health and safety and COVID distance restrictions.

Projected Curling Participation in 2020/21

Roseland administered an online survey of their curling membership using SurveyMonkey in late August. The data from this survey has been used during the board’s decision-making process and we have heard it quoted in the media to justify their decision. Unfortunately, we fully believe the survey was not administered in a fair or scientific manner leading to heavily flawed results.