Re: 鈥淧enny-pinching councils are the greatest risk to curling,鈥� comment, March 31.
Curling is not in decline, nor is it just a retirement pastime. It is a growing Olympic winter sport embedded in Canadian culture and identity. What is lacking is municipal leadership.
This is exacerbated in the Capital Regional District by the balkanization of recreation facilities and programs through 13 separate municipal halls. The closing of the Juan de Fuca Curling Centre represents a failure of regional co-operation and planning.
While the Victoria Curling Club will do its best to find a space for anybody who wants to curl, this will not be easy. Many of our leagues are already at or near capacity, and taking in more members might displace planned expansion of youth development, limit rental opportunities and place a strain on future event hosting. In March alone, the club had five major multi-day events, a significant impact on the local economy.
Some curling buildings are aging, and many aren鈥檛 designed for an increasingly younger demographic of recreational curlers and high-performance athletes. Rather than closing clubs, we should be calling on our municipal councillors to step up and renew this social legacy by renovating clubs or by building new rinks, as has been done in Chilliwack.
This should include consideration of a regional curling facility and training centre in the CRD with 10 or more sheets of ice. Curling is at a tipping point in Greater Victoria. There are 14聽sheets of curling ice for about 300,000 residents. We need more curling ice, not less.
Neil Campbell
President
Victoria Curling Club
