Ice expected to be ready by early February for Tofield curlers – three bonspiels to be held within two months

Curling-Filing — Mark Lampitt (left) and Scott Smulski were busy installing the necessary plumbing and pipes to the ice making machinery at the Tofield Curling Rink last week.

Tofield and area curl-ers will be kept quite busy at their local curling rink once the ice is in place at the beginning of February.

Doug Hardy, caretaker and icemaker for the Tofield Curling Rink, put the date for curling to start around Feb. 4. The rink will run for two months, anyway, with three bonspiels to guarantee a busy time for participating curlers.

“We just hope we get 90 per cent of them back,” he said. “The pro-blem is we lost a lot of members to Camrose, Mundare, Ardrossan, and Ryley. And some just quit.”

The curling season was delayed in Tofield due to failure of the refrigeration equipment for the second year in a row. A decision was made to order new equipment, which didn’t arrive until last month. Workers began installing the new unit Jan. 2.

By: Patricia Harcourt, Editor

For more see the Jan. 22/13 issue of the Tofield Mercury