The level of competition at the Westlock Curling Club was high last weekend for the Town and Country Bonspiel, which ran Jan. 6-8.
To make things a little more interesting, the championship games were stories of both family cooperation and family rivalries.
In the ‘A’ event final, a team comprising three generations of Wildfongs took the top prize. Skip Kim Wildfong lead his father Ray and his two sons Christopher and Matthew to victory over Stephane Gervais’ team, which is known to be very competitive in the Westlock curling scene.
“It was a lot of fun,” Ray Wildfong said. “I was really happy for the boys.”
In the ‘B’ event, on the other hand, the story was all about family rivalries.
Paula Clark, one of the organizers of the tournament, said sisters Adelle Clark and Rachel Clark went head-to-head in the final, with Adelle edging out Rachel for the win.
The second-place team is fairly novice to the sport, as well, as the curlers are all high school students.
“Rachel’s team is the high school team she’s going to go to zones with,” Paula Clark said. “And Rachel beat me to get into the final.”
In the ‘C’ event, Barrhead’s Al Shipton overcame Grant Anderson for the win.
Shipton’s rink is actually better known as a stick-curling team, and will in fact compete at the Canada 55+ Games in Sydney, N.S. this summer. The team will compete in the 65+ category, hopefully bringing some hardware home to the region.
“They curled really, really well,” Paula Clark said.
Overall, she added, the levels of participation and competition at the bonspiel were right where organizers hoped they would be.
“We had 20 teams, which is really good,” she said. “We’re usually right in there for the Town and Country bonspiel.”
The added bonus to those participation numbers is that four of the 20 teams involved were high school teams — a promising sign for a sport that has waned in popularity over the last few decades.
“We usually have a couple (high school teams), but we haven’t had four,” Paula Clark said. “We usually have a couple school teams; we’re trying to get more and more of them out to replace the teams who are retiring.”
