Charity events have slid into a rough patch

Busy calendar means teams have less time at season's end

Adam Daifallah

National Post

April 6, 2004

Aside from watching the Masters golf tournament on TV, there aren't many Easter weekend rituals for curlers. If there is one, it would be the annual Kurl for Kids Charity bonspiel at Toronto's Avonlea Curling Club.

Kurl for Kids is likely the most prominent among the many charitable fundraising bonspiels and events the world of curling runs every year, the lion's share of which take place in the last few weeks of the season. The event has raised close to $1.3-million for a variety of causes in its 14 years, the current beneficiary being Toronto's Variety Village.

Curlers are encouraged to raise enough money to be among the lucky few who get to choose a "celebrity skip" to play with at the event. It's a major incentive. (I participated in the event twice, and was lucky enough to pick two world champions -- the flamboyant Marilyn Bodogh and the loudest yeller in the sport's history, Russ Howard.)

But the Kurl for Kids, which gets under way Thursday night at the storied Avonlea, has been struggling. Numbers are way down. Until recently there were enough curlers for 64 teams -- enough to fill two full draws at the mammoth 16-sheet facility. This year there are only enough for half that. And the biggest-name celebrity skip this year is Guy Hemmings, who, despite being a highly-recognizable, fun and popular curler, hasn't even won a Brier.

"Over the last several years we've had a bit of difficulty getting teams," said Fred Willison, the retired police officer who founded the spiel and has run it each year since.

"You begin to wonder sometimes if the bonspiel has reached its shelf-life. People are busy. Easter is a family time."

This is Mr. Willison's last year running the event. He's moving out of town, and it will be up to others to take over. But don't think Kurl for Kids is the only one having such problems.

The Heart-to-Heart Charity Bonspiel, founded by three-time Brier champ Rick Lang, is also experiencing dwindling turnout. This is the 23rd year for the Thunder Bay event, which is being played April 22-25 at the Port Arthur Curling Club. The spiel has raised more than $750,000 for the Heart and Stroke Foundation since its founding.

"We're down from 32 to 24 teams. It seems that the curling season is getting longer and longer for the competitive teams," said Jim Glena, a member of the event's organizing committee. "Interest seems to be waning in our area for the curlers who enter the spiel."

People like Willison and Glena are the unsung heroes of curling. The committees for these huge events consist of volunteers, and it takes all year to put them together. For the most part, the factors causing these spiels' troubles are beyond their control. The main problem: There's just too much going on.

"The curling calendar is becoming increasingly busy and the available weekends that do not conflict with any other curling initiative very difficult to come by," said Gerry Peckham, the Canadian Curling Association's manager of high performance, who founded a now-defunct charity spiel in Prince George, B.C.

For instance, La Releve East, a training camp for elite curlers sponsored by Sport Canada, is taking place in Guelph this weekend. Last week, men's teams were tied up in St. John's for the PharmAssist Players' Championship. Provincial mixed championships happen next week.

A week here and a week there, and you're gone for the whole month, haven't seen your family and are out of holiday time at work.

And when there are so many different charity spiels, it's tough to commit to more than one. Heather Nedohin (wife of David from Randy Ferbey's rink) runs a charity spiel in Edmonton. Cheryl Bernard, the Calgary curler who was runner-up in the 1996 Scott Tournament of Hearts, started an event last year, Curl for a Cure, while her father was dying of brain cancer, raising $143,000 in its first year.

The Canadian Spinal Research Organization (CSRO) has launched a new campaign modeled after the successful "Shoot For A Cure" hockey initiative called "Shoot For A Cure Curling," where curlers are invited to operate bonspiels with help from CSRO for the charity and wheelchair curling. So far, $23,000 has been raised after only one single-day event. There's the Sandra Schmirler Foundation, which is helping to raise money for families with seriously ill children, and there are dozens of smaller events at clubs across the country -- it would be impossible to list them all.

Nobody can accuse curlers of not doing their fair share for charity, even if some events are experiences some rough times.