Throwing Rocks and Hurrying Hard

For the first time, Chestermere High School (CHS) will be hosting the South Central Curling Zones Bonspiel Feb. 10 and 11 at the Chestermere and Indus Curling rinks.
This bonspiel is a chance for the curling team, CHS students and staff to showcase the time and effort that has been put in by the teams in the lead up to zones.
“Hosting zones gives parents, family and community members an opportunity to see students excel outside of the classroom environment,” said CHS Curling Coach Margie Bremer in an e-mail.
This year CHS has one girls team, one boys team and two mixed teams made up of kids with a wide range of experience.
“Players on our teams range from those that are very new to the sport, only taking it up this school year, to those that are involved in U18 Club play,” she said.
Some of the teams play and compete together outside of school. Other have experience from either middle school or with Indus and Chestermere junior curling.
As host, CHS will have a team in each of the boys, girls and mixed division. Each division will have eight teams competing drawn from seven school districts.
Participating districts are: Mountain View, Rocky View, Grasslands, Wheatland, Rangeland, Foothills/Bow Corridor, Three Hills/Drumheller and CHS as the host.
Teams are selected in each school district through a series of playoffs to pick the top teams to compete at Zones.
The winning teams from the South Central Curling Zones Bonspiel will go on to compete at the Alberta High School Provincial Bonspiel in Lethbridge, March 2 -3.
Bremer said that it is both an honour and a privilege for the athletes and coaches to compete at provincials.
“It takes hard work, dedication and skill to earn a berth in any provincial competition,” she said.
Although she would like to see her students succeed and compete at provincials, Bremer said that success doesn’t necessarily always mean winning.
“Success is not always measured in wins.
“Athletes and teams that play their best, learn new skills and strategies and have fun while doing it are all experiencing success,” she said.
Coaches will always want their athletes to perform to the best of their abilities regardless of the outcome.
“If that means they win games, trophies or banners; that’s fabulous,” said Bremer, “if it means they have a great game, do their best but do not advance, that’s okay too.”
She is hoping that the competitors that are new to curling will play with confidence and develop a love of the sport.
“For the more experienced curler, our hope is that they grow as individual athletes and as a team,” said Bremer.
In addition to benefits of hosting, namely getting to compete in each division without first winning the Rocky View playoffs, CHS has several responsibilities as host.
They are responsible to organize both the curling venues and all of the support services need for the bonspiel.
“You need appropriate facilities and their staff in order to accommodate the number of athletes and games that need to be played in a short amount of time,” she said.
Included in this is scheduling ice makers to maintain the rinks, umpires and other officials, and food services for both the athletes and fans.
“Chestermere Curling Club and the Indus Curling Club provide those facilities for us,” she said.
In addition to the logistics of the tournament, Bremer and the other CHS organizers are responsible to create the tournament schedule.
“This involves communicating with all the school divisions about which teams will be attending the Zone Bonspiel and then filling in any gaps in team numbers that may exist,” said Bremer.
Staff, students, parents and other volunteers will all be helping to bring the competition together.
“It takes a dedicated team of Coaches, School Athletic personnel, parents and volunteers to organize and run such an event.
“We have both an excellent team of Coaches and school personnel,” said Bremer.