WESTLOCK – The Westlock Curling Club’s 2020/21 season has been officially cancelled, with club officials citing the Jan. 7 extension of the province’s COVID-19 lockdown as the reason.
In November the club had decided against starting the year and took a wait-and-see approach, with January as the possible date for the installation of the ice and the start of the league season, which would have run until mid-April. The ice at the Rotary Spirit Centre has also been out since mid-December as user groups like hockey and ringette await word on when, or if, they’ll be able to resume play.
“The latest announcements (by the province) made the decision quite easy. It is what it is, which seems to be the phrase of choice for this year,” said curling club president Paula Clark. “The lockdowns are in place until the 22nd or the 23rd so we wouldn’t have had ice until maybe the second week of February … even if we would have been allowed to open up. So that would have allowed us to play what, maybe, eight games.
“In hindsight we were fortunate that we didn’t start up as it didn’t cost us any money. And we didn’t lose any curlers because they didn’t go anywhere else because nothing else was open. That was our biggest fear — if we didn’t open up they’d go somewhere else and then they might not come back next year.”
And although there won’t be any curling until the fall of 2021, Clark said they do plan on trying to get some work done at the rink, if and when the provincial gathering restrictions are eased.
“We’re hoping once they open it up to small groups we can still have a work bee in there as there’s still some stuff we want to get done this year,” she said. “Maybe we can do some work on the ice area, do some clean up and painting. If we can get 10 people in at the same time we can get a lot done.”
