(CCA – by Jean Mills). Curling clubs offer so many opportunities for competition.  We can join weekly leagues, enter bonspiels near and far, and take part in traditional special events (Turkey Draw, anyone?)  For those of us who get into the sport looking for something more, we can test ourselves at provincial or territorial playdowns with an eye to competing on the national stage.

 But let’s face it: most of us club curlers don’t get the chance to reach those elite heights, and that’s just fine.  For us, curling is a recreational sport. It’s about getting some exercise, meeting some friends, socializing after the game and simply experiencing the pleasure of playing a game that challenges us on so many levels.  It’s a great way to spend the long Canadian winter. For most of us, that’s enough.

 Still, who hasn’t watched the Big Kids play at the Brier or Scotties and wondered: “What would that be like?”  Every year, as I watch our country’s top curlers strut their stuff on the national stage, I can’t help imagining myself stepping out on the ice, wearing an Ontario team jacket, getting down in the hack to throw a perfect stone, right on the broom, right on the money.

 Ha!  Like that’s ever going to happen!

  Well, curlers, it could happen, and we have The Dominion Insurance Company to thank. In 2008, Dominion CEO George Cooke, a recreational curler himself, launched the idea of a national championship for regular club curlers.  Not the elite athletes who compete on the national and world stage, but the regular curler who plies his or her curling trade at clubs across the country knowing that such rarefied air is probably out of reach.

 Click to read this column at www.curling.ca

The Dominion Curling Club Championship