The Prince Rupert Curling Club hosted their first competitive tournament of the year with ten teams of four members at The Rona Mixed Bonspiel, Feb. 25 to 27.

Team Bernhardt walked away as the champions of draw A while team Eisenhauer, team Bullied, from Terrace, and team LaFrance won draws B, C and D, respectively.

This was the first full tournament, with four event draws, the curling club hosted in nearly three years, Natasha Lebedick, tournament organizer, told The Northern View.

The event’s biggest success was finally being to host curlers from the region in competition, Lebedick said.

“We’re just so glad to be back. So happy to see everybody. It’s a sport we love. We just want to share it, and having people in the building is the best way to do it,” Danny Dawson, tournament competitor, said.

“It’s exciting. We haven’t had this many people in this building for so long. It’s just so nice to see everybody’s face … It’s an incredibly social sport,” Dawson said.

The event offered breakfast, lunch, and a bar for competitors and spectators alike to partake in. The curling club’s tournaments are open to the public to watch and take part in the food and drink, Lebedick said.

Due to the tournament’s uneven drawn, each team was guaranteed to play at least three games each, even if they lost their first match, Lebedick said. The losing teams of higher-ranked draws, A being the highest level and D the lowest, moved down a level to compete against a lower-ranked team.

While the club is jumping back into organizing tournaments, the club’s membership is still looking to rebound to pre-pandemic levels, which numbered around 100 and currently sits at approximately 70 people, Lebedick said. That is the minimum level of members to keep the club running, she said.

Tournaments are only able to be run if they have enough volunteers. The Rona Mixed Bonspiel had more than 15 volunteers to help organize and run the event, which is typical for all events, Lebedick said.

The next curling tournament in Prince Rupert will be the Men’s Marine Bonspiel held on March 11 to 13.

READ MORE: Curling Club hosts first tournament in two years

Prince Rupert Curling Club