Early in November, the Snow Lake Curling Club provided a league curling update to their membership via social media. In it they stated: “Unfortunately due to extensive renovations on the curling club building, league curling will be cancelled for the entire season.”
The update advised that the club’s executive reviewed and debated options on opening the club to the public sometime in the 2017-18 season, but it just wasn’t possible. “Opening the club at any point this season will prove to be a large challenge and is unrealistic, as the renovations are really quite extensive and will take quite a lot more time than planned,” the social media post read. “We know this is disappointing for our valued members, but next season is going to be amazing, as everything will be brand new and up to code for many years to come!”
Contacted about the closure, curling club president Terry Hornyak explained the reason for the restriction was a flood of water within the building in September. “The urinals in the upstairs men’s washroom overflowed and caused significant damage to the clubroom, the basement, and interior walls,” he said. “Because of this damage, walls had to be taken apart and during that process it was determined there was asbestos within them.” He said that once this was discovered, it was a whole new ballgame and people who are trained and certified have to be brought in to deal with the substance.
Hornyak stated prior to the discovery of asbestos and with the initial renovation of only water damage, the club had a workable timeframe to have ice in and curling underway. They would just close off the construction area and work around the renovation. However, as it sits now, workers will be in the building until some point late in January 2018. With the work involved putting in and painting ice, it seemed hardly worth the effort for a drastically shortened season of three to four weeks.
Notwithstanding, Hornyak says that it wasn’t from a lack of trying. The club executive and town chief administrative officer looked at a number of solutions that could draw out the season, but liability, lack of washrooms, costs, and other factors made it impossible. “It was a tough decision to make,” Hornyak stated sincerely. “Everyone on the executive still wanted to curl this year, but for a window of four weeks…”
The club president says that his biggest concern right now is that people losing a season of curling will also lose interest in the sport. “But I think if we can keep people talking about it through Facebook, through attending out-of-town bonspiels … that will hold interest here and encourage outsiders to return the favor and attend our 2018 bonspiels,” said the president. He added that the club has 45 to 50 full members, plus spares and associates and they hope to increase that when they open for the 2018-19 season.
On another issue, the president said that there was no truth to the rumour that the club’s ice plant would have to be replaced as a result of the water damage. He said there was an electrical problem with the plant, resulting from the flood, but that it was repaired in-house. He added that the club also hopes to have problems with the roof addressed in the near term.
The entire asbestos abatement program and renovation will be covered under the Town of Snow Lake’s insurance policy and Hornyak says that he doesn’t expect that the closure will affect the club’s own finances. Nevertheless, he urges members and prospective members to watch all the curling they can on TV and seriously consider joining with others to attend some or all of the bonspiels in the surrounding area, to be ready for the 2018 season.
“Let’s keep our curling blood flowing and look forward to next season,” said the club president.
