Jim's Keen Ice

Winter is certainly full of surprises!

It extended golf seasons, kept rivers open and left little snow. My Calvinistic soul says we will have to pay, for this is proving to be right! But new equipment and technology is helping us.

The ice has to be kept below a certain temperature to be good for curling: If Mother Nature doesn’t do this, the refrigeration plant must.

This winter the plant has been working hard to keep the ice shed in playing condition.

Members remember when we had condensation inside the roof, which became drips that fell on to the playing surface. It was not uncommon to see players grabbing the hand scraper to shave away the knobs on the sheets.

Nowadays we have dehumidifiers, which chill the moisture out of the air and send it outside before it can do damage.

So, we have the compressor and brine pump churning to cool the ice and the dehumidifiers running to dry the air.

Because of this new equipment we now have the greatest ice east of the Rockies;-)

UCT play on January 7^th saw Andy Savoie beat Emery LeBlanc, John Ferguson beat Raj Chettiar, Val Saulnier beat Albert Mazerolle and Alvin Lavigne beat the Joel Roy team that is replacing Roe Doucet’s.

On January 14^th Albert Mazerolle beat Emery LeBlanc, Raj Chettiar beat Joel Roy, John Ferguson beat Alvin Lavigne and Val Saulnier beat Andy Savoie. Monday January 8^th fell victim to the weather, being cancelled.

January 15^th saw Babineau beat Giberson, Godin beat LaFramboise, Nicolle beat Maher, Savoie beat Glendenning and Lavigne beat Fontaine. Tuesday, January 9th saw Amy Anderson defeat Marc Brown, Dale Glendenning defeat Cletus Boucher, John LeBlanc defeat Terry Wilbur and Raj Chettiar defeat Wells Chapman.

January 16^th saw Comeau over Wilbur, Chettiar over Anderson, Boucher over LeBlanc, Chapman over Glendenning and Brown over Savoie.

On Thursday January 11^th Babineau defeated Brown, Assaf defeated Homiak, Gagne defeated Giberson, Wilbur defeated Fontaine and MacDonald defeated Gallagher. Finally, on Thursday, January 18^th …

The second funspiel of the year will be held on January 19^th and 20^th already 10 teams registered with more planning to participate.

Hanley’s Horde, the afternoon seniors, were at Miramichi on January 17th to visit the brand new clubhouse. The hospitality was typically Miramichi, as was the camaraderie in the splendid, six sheet, climate controlled ice shed. The ice was fast and curled a good three feet both ways. We played two four end games enabling as many curlers as possible to meet and mingle. There will be a return visit by the Miramichi seniors on Wednesday January 31^st.