Editor’s note: from these beginnings, Cornwall is set to host 50 Stick Curling teams from across Canada at next week’s Canadian Open Stick Curling Championship. Stavert and Stratton are one of the 2-person teams entered.
Instrument helps deliver curlers back into the hack to compete
From The Guardian, December 20, 2001
The delivery stick allows curlers who are mobility-restricted to continue to play
By Don Morrison
The Guardian
(photo by Derek MacEwen)
Three of four members of the rink entered in the Friday morning seniors’ league at the Cornwall Curling Club and two other seniors who curl at the club use the delivery stick which has allowed them to continue enjoying the sport. Lorne MacPhail, left, Ernie Stavert, centre and Sterling Stratton, right, compete with Al Hammond, missing from the photo, in the league. Joining the trio who use the delivery stick are Karen Wood, second left, and Eileen Blanchard.
CORNWALL – As much as Ernie Stavert wanted to return to the sport he enjoyed for close to four decades, it just didn’t seem possible.
A broken hip eight years ago left stiffness in his leg which made continuing curling impossible. Coming out of the hack to deliver a rock was too uncomfortable.
Then he was told of a device which had allowed other mobility-restricted individuals to continue curling.
“Gordie Lank was on his travels somewhere and he came back and said ‘I saw these people using a delivery stick’ and told me I should try that because I had been out of curling for three or four years,” said Stavert, a member of the Cornwall Curling Club and the first Islander to utilize the attachment.
A call to the Canadian Curling Association to locate a supplier subsequently triggered another idea.
He was told there were a number of commercial products on the market, selling for between $30-$200,”depending on what kind of bells and whistles you want to get”. Stavert was also told he could construct a delivery stick of his own.
“So I went to a plumbing shop and got a piece of pipe, put a 45 degree elbow on it and away I went. I paid $6.26 for my piece of plumbing.”
Stavert is one of about a dozen Cornwall members using the delivery stick.
In his fourth year with the device — although he has since moved to a commercial variety because it provides better stability — Stavert was comfortable with the unit from the outset.
“Because I was a teacher and used to being in front of people it didn’t bother me in the least but an awful lot of people were self-conscious about using it. Now it seems to be taking off.”
The delivery stick, which hooks to the stone’s handle enabling a curler to deliver a rock from an upright position, is becoming part of the game, especially for seniors or those with restricted mobility.
And it fully conforms to CCA regulations.
Nicole Phillips, president of the P.E.I. Curling Association, said the delivery stick has been a blessing for those looking to stay in the game.
“Curling is one of those activities which really is a true wellness-type sport where people can stay into their 80s,” said Phillips. “By reaching out to more people that might be in their senior years or wouldn’t be able to continue because of some physical limitation, it is going to add to the numbers that stay.”
Stavert is a member of a foursome of stick users in the Cornwall club’s Friday morning seniors league along with Sterling Stratton, who returned to the sport because of the tool after an extensive hiatus, Al Hammond and Lorne MacPhail.
The delivery stick will get extensive play during the provincial senior championship Jan. 2-6 at Cornwall.
“A whole bunch (will be) using the sticks in the provincial seniors,” said Stavert. “Sterling wanted to use the seniors as a warm up to the masters and I’m not old enough for the masters yet so there is no stick team, as such, going in the provincials although the team I’m on, there are three people using it and Sterling’s has a couple.”
While the stick has allowed for longer participation in the sport, it is less forgiving than a conventional delivery.
“When you deliver with a normal delivery you have some chance to adjust,” said Stavert. “If you’re sliding too weak or too strong then you push or hold back. With the delivery stick it’s more that one push or thrust and whatever you get is what you get.”
Stavert isn’t sure where the idea of the delivery stick originated but admits it may have had its start from disabled sports.
“I suppose it was one of those things, it took somebody to come up with a good idea. A lot of times these things evolve through sports for the disabled but I don’t know much about the background of curling for people with disabilities.”
(permission rec’d in 2001 to repost)