It’s shaping up to be a big year for the Okotoks curling community.
“I was the first club in the south to be open,” said Okotoks Curling Club general manager Mike Libbus. “We’ve had a lot of teams out practising, a lot of our members getting out practising.
“It’s getting busier every day which is a good sign.”
With ice installed since the first of the month, practices are already underway at the OCC with league play set to get underway on the first weekend of October and both a U18 and U20 spiel running over that timeframe, the first events in those age groups of the curling season.
“There will be eight teams in each division that will come out and play,” Libbus said. “No spectators, we’re going to allow one coach and one team manager to come in just so the teams will be able to live-stream the games themselves.”
One negative this year is the OCC had to make some adjustments to its junior curling academy due to some factors out of its control. The academy had about 80 kids involved last year, but have had to cut it down to ensure guidelines of just four kids per sheet are met.
Registration numbers are mostly promising at the club.
“We have a few open spots in the evening, but they’re filling up quick,” Libbus said. “It seems like our senior leagues are all at least to where they were last year, if not more. One of our leagues on Wednesdays we’ve extended to the full year due to no snowbirds heading south and it’s filled up quickly.
“Numbers are looking good.”
For league play, curling is a physically distanced sport not a cohort sport. Some of the COVID-19 guidelines include limiting sweepers to one and no sweeping from skips behind the tee-line.
For competitive events, teams will be part of sports cohorts.
Okotoks also stepped up to the plate to host a couple of big name events on the men’s and women’s circuit with some of the top teams in the province set to play in Big Rock Country in November.
The OCC will host the ATB Classic from Nov. 6-8 and the following weekend will be the venue for the Women’s Alberta Tour event Nov. 14-15.
“Benny Hebert has been working throughout the province trying to get some events so the teams can play in Alberta because all the slams were cancelled,” Libbus said. “And they were trying to put a schedule together that worked for them and we ended up having some conflicts with our regular WCT (World Curling Tour) event. Benny contacting me saying it was his mistake and would we be interested in hosting one of these ATB Classics that they’re running.”
The ATB Classic will feature the top teams in Alberta from the Kevin Koe and Brendan Bottcher rinks to local favourites with the likes of Turner Valley’s Jacob Libbus and Okotoks’ Kyler Kleibrink, the third for the Jeremy Harty rink.
“There’s going to be points available for people to be able to qualify for provincials,” Libbus said. “And the teams are pretty excited. We actually have a waitlist for that event right now, including some big names from out of province and right now we’re not allowing out of province in that event specifically.
“We’ll see if we end up needing some spots filled, maybe.”
Once Okotoks got the ATB date locked down, there were inquiries made to add the Women’s Tour event.
“Okotoks’ approach is we’re going to do whatever we can to grow the game of curling,” Libbus said. “And to give back as much as we can this year and just provide a place for people to play the game safely and for our staff to be able to there safely.
“Now we have some big names coming to that as well who basically have a connection to Alberta one way or another.”
Those names include three-time national champion Rachel Homan, former Alberta champion Val Sweeting — the defending national champ as third on the Kerri Einarson rink.
“Rachel Homan is supposed to be coming, she hasn’t registered yet, but three of her players live in Alberta,” Libbus said. “Val Sweeting for Team Einarson, the Canadian champs, are supposed to be coming and Sweeting of course lives in Alberta. Jocelyn Peterman signed up Jennifer Jones, (Peterman) is another one from Alberta.
“They don’t have as many competitive ladies teams that meet the minimum so we had to open it up (out of province) a little bit, but we’re following all the guidelines for sure and making sure we’re providing a safe place for everybody to come.”
With no spectators allowed for in-person viewing, plans are in place for the OCC to live-stream the event off its Facebook page.
For more information go to okotokscurling.com.
