Long before laser-cut rocks with enamel-embossed steel handles, heated lounges and evenly-pebbled indoor ice, there was curling in Cochrane.
More than 100 years ago, 100-and-a-half to be exact, the Cochrane Curling Club came to be. The first rocks were thrown Dec. 13, 1913.
The hearty souls who founded this noble sporting endeavour thought nothing of gathering outdoors in the dead of winter to partake in the great “roaring game.”
And roar their rocks did, as the non-symmetrical stones weighing 35-54 pounds whirled down the outdoor single sheet of ice located east of town, south of the Big Hill Lodge. Rather than numbers adorning the projectiles, coloured pom-poms were tied to the rocks to differentiate the teams.
Some curlers owned their own rocks while the club’s rocks were locked in a special box at the rink. With an opening annual budget of $475.25, the Cochrane Curling Club purchased rocks, an ice maker, a cash book and a minute book.
From that beginning, the club moved to a Quonset structure with two sheets of indoor ice. The building cost $600 and the ground on which it was built $80. A scraper, a sheepskin, a tank for hot water and a sprayer for pebbling the ice was also purchased. Water from the river was hauled in a wooden tank, pulled by a team of horses, in order to make the ice until the club established a well in the 1930s. That facility lasted until 1953, when a three-sheet indoor facility was built lasting until 1984 when it burned down. Today’s four-sheet facility still serves Cochrane’s curling community, and percolates with the sport’s history in town.
