The Cloverdale Curling Club’s annual men’s bonspiel, The Workingman’s, took place over three great days of curling in late February.
The Workingman’s bonspiel is a long-held tradition at the Cloverdale Curling Club, dating back to the ’80’s, and is part of the Lower Mainland Region 11 Men’s competitive circuit.
A total of 28 teams competed this year, including many local clubs as well as teams from Seattle and Lillooet.
The host club had many of its regular Tuesday and Thursday night men’s teams enter as well.
The club offered substantially increased prize money this year. Each team earned between $20 and $40 per win along the way, depending on their records to that point. This was in addition to some very nice payouts if a team made the semifinals or finals.
One of the highlights – as always at the Workingman’s – was the Saturday night steak dinner and buffet. The steaks were superb as we continued the ‘grill your own!’ tradition.
There were also many great raffle prizes offered, including a 55-inch television, all courtesy of the club.
Manager Judy MacKinnon was very happy with the amount of teams registering and the quality of the curling.
“It was nice to see a good number of our own club’s men’s teams competing and of course, we’re very happy with those teams who came from out of the Lower Mainland all the way to Cloverdale for the weekend,” said MacKinnon.
MacKinnon went on to acknowledge the volunteers who helped make the bonspiel possible. The volunteers helped out with the bar and the steak dinner and sold 50/50 tickets as well.
“These bonspiels would not work unless we have the valuable support and help from within our own club,” said MacKinnon.
The big winners on the weekend were: In the ‘A’ Event, Team Harris from the Cloverdale Club, who defeated Team Petursson from the Langley Curling Club.
In the ‘B’ Event, the winners were Team Shoesmith from The Granite Curling Club in Seattle, who defeated Team Rafter from Tsawwassen’s Tunnel Town Club.
Our ‘C’ Event champions were Team Kyne from the Langley, Cloverdale and Victoria Clubs respectively. They defeated a team of our youngest curlers – Team Silva – from the Cloverdale Club.
Congratulations to the finalists and to all our fine competing curlers. See you at next year’s Workingman’s.
Visit www.cloverdalecurlingclub.ca for more information on next season and the upcoming bonspiels in 2017/18.
Maybe next year, it will be your team’s turn.
Gary McLaughlin writes for the Cloverdale Curling Club.