opinion & features

The queer community’s curious passion for curling

In February of 2000, a young Texan boarded a plane on a balmy day in Houston. He got off the plane in Calgary and walked straight into an icy Canadian winter. Sitting in his hotel room, he turned on the TV and started flipping through the channels. His attention was caught immediately by a curious display of people sliding rocks on sheets of ice in a ritualistic fashion. This was accompanied by a furious sweeping of brooms and a cacophony of shouting.  “Why are they shouting,” he wondered. “And what are they shouting?

He was fascinated. He was intrigued. He was Mark Kelly – the same Mark Kelly who in 2011 is the president of Winnipeg’s Keystone Rainbow Curling League. Kelly became a commuting groupie of queer bonspiels in Alberta. A Calgary friend introduced him to Winnipeg and he began curling here. Through curling he found romance. Now the two men are married.  

So what’s up with queer curling, anyway? How come GLBTT curling clubs have blossomed in cities like Calgary, Toronto, Edmonton, Montreal and Ottawa? And how come Winnipeg’s own Keystone Rainbow Curling League is not only surviving but thriving? The league was formed in 2004 following a successful gay bonspiel. Such success seems to run counter to some of the gloom and doom associated with the “roaring game”. You may have heard that Brandon’s Wheat City Curling Club closed its doors permanently in March of this year. You may have heard the scorn from curling’s detractors: “Curling’s a bore, curling’s a snore.” 

But Winnipeg’s GLBTT community isn’t buying that line. In fact, the Rainbow League has maxed out its membership this year and it pulled off this feat on the strength of word-of-mouth networking. The league accepts only 21 teams per season and 21 teams – all men or all women or mixed men and women – are competing. Mark Kelly wears a satisfied smile. “It’s a big thrill for me to look across nine sheets of curling ice and see all of them filled with our members.” 

Each Sunday afternoon, 18 teams take to the ice while three teams get the afternoon off. With four members per team and two teams per sheet, Kelly is talking about 72 happy people with brooms – all out there at the same time. And, wow! What a world-class venue they have for their weekly gig! The Rainbow curlers play at the Granite Curling Club – a recently refurbished rink that’s graced the banks of the Assiniboine River since 1880. Centrally located near Manitoba’s Legislative Building, its nine sheets of ice make it ideal for a weekly gathering of the clan. In other leagues and venues, only a fraction of the teams can play at one time. “We’re the largest single draw GBLTT curling league in the country,” Kelly says proudly. 

Rainbow member Ron Reilly first curled in high school at Windsor Park Collegiate three decades ago. He came out when he was 30. “Curling was the first gay activity I got involved in that wasn’t in a bar,” he says. “It was the first place I was able to be ‘out’ comfortably. The Rainbow Curling League has had a profound impact on my life. I found my partner here.”

Rod Ingram skips a foursome called “Three and Half Men.” Ingram started curling at the Grain Exchange Curling Club when he was 12. He graduated from being a teenage rink rat, who followed the icemaker around, to becoming a board member and then to becoming the youngest president of the Grain Exchange Curling Club. Ingram is an “A” group curler and has represented Rainbow at the national queer bonspiel five out of the six seasons he’s been involved. To get one of two berths to the nationals, your team has to curl well enough to win the points aggregate (tallied at the end of the season), or you can win the A group. Ingram has gone national via both these avenues.

Ingram says the Rainbow League gets a lot of respect. This was demonstrated when Curl Manitoba – the body that governs curling in Manitoba – gave its blessing for Rainbow curlers to wear provincial jackets at the GBLTT National Bonspiel. “Manitoba was the first to bring their provincial jackets,” says Ingram, “and now other provinces are doing it as well.”

Ingram is an elite curler but, like Reilly, sees the social side of the curling league as its greatest strength – even more important than the competitive aspect or the athleticism involved. Ingram, growing up in Point Douglas, says his mother was an influence and a role model who prepared his way to get involved in sport. “She believed sport was a great positive influence and outlet, a great forum.” 

Ingram and Reilly cherish the diversity of people attracted to the Rainbow league. There are curlers as young as 18 and as seasoned as 67. Like golf, curling has the potential to be a lifelong pastime, but unlike golf, the cost of curling is modest. You need a broom, a shoe with a ‘slider’ and the annual registration fee – $145. The slider – depending on your balance, agility and experience – allows you to look cool as you gracefully glide the length of the rink propelling yourself with your non-slider shoe. You can blow more money, if you want, on items such as matching team sweaters. You can splurge on kilts and tartans to evoke the Scottish connection. One group of Rainbow curlers wears knitted Rainbow coloured toques.

Curling’s genteel nature also has to be a draw for many members. The shaking of hands with opposing team players is common before and after the game. Yes, you will hear shouting, but not swearing. You will see sweeping, but not crosschecking. People throw rocks at the “house” but not at each other.  There is no boarding or fighting. Don Cherry does not produce “Rock ‘em, sock ‘em” curling videos. In short, the whole undertaking of a curling draw (game) is a refined and polite contest free of rudeness and vulgarity.

Ingram lauds the Rainbow League for offering “a sense of belonging in a healthy environment.” This is echoed by Reilly. Although he acknowledges the challenge, strategy and skill involved in curling, he sees the league as an opportunity for young gay people “who want to be part of something bigger, that can add purpose and meaning to their lives.” Through membership in the Rainbow League, Reilly and his partner found a group of friends they could also socialize with outside of curling.

OK, so what’s up with queer curling? Let’s do the tally to explain the Rainbow League’s success: a sense of belonging, lasting friendships, cardiovascular exercise, camaraderie on the ice and off, a gentility natural to the sport, opportunity to excel, freedom to express a sense of style, a healthful social focus, potential for romance and marriage, opportunities to expand one’s social network, ... what’s to not like?

– C. R. Procyk is a Winnipeg-based freelance writer. To comment on this or any other article in Outwords, write to letters@outwords.ca.