She is having great fun as one of a group of 20 seniors in the Bay St. George area taking part in stick curling.
The nearly 81-year-old woman, who now lives in Stephenville, spent eight years curling in Labrador when she and her late husband, John Gray, lived there from 1973 to 2001. She said both of them loved their game of curling.
The season that wrapped up on Friday is her third for being involved and she said she’ll miss it in the off-season.
“It’s good exercise and I really enjoy it. Through it I’ve met a lot of new friends from all over Bay St. George. It’s just lots and lots of fun,” she said.
The stick curling program, which involves using a stick to send the rock down the ice, is sponsored by the Port au Port East Twilight Seniors Club, but is open to all seniors in the Bay St. George region, with people involved from Robinsons, St. George’s, Stephenville and Port au Port.
Since getting involved in stick curling, Ed Fost of St. George’s has been really turned on to the sport and loved it so much that he got involved with nighttime curling at the Caribou Curling Club.
He enrolled in stick curling last November and now also curls twice a week in the regular league, has undergone some training as a timekeeper and is contemplating volunteering his time as an ice technician next season.
Martha Bennett, a St. George’s woman who got Fost involved in the game, said stick curling is great for socializing and for learning more about the techniques of the game.
“It makes the winters go a little faster, gets you out of the house, meeting a lot of people and having a good laugh and great fun,” Bennett said.
Mary Hynes of the Twilight Seniors Club said stick curling is made possible through a grant from Community Health Living and that representatives from the Caribou Curling Club have been very supportive.
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Twitter: @WS_FrankGale
