Percy Speed is seen presenting the Grand Challenge trophy to the winning Bert McLelland rink at the North Battleford bonspiel in February 1960. Left to right: Percy Speed, skip Bert McLelland, third Jack Taylor, second Sam Nichol, and lead Bill Wouters; all of whom were members of the North Battleford Granite Curling Club. (Archive Photo/Saskatoon Star Phoenix)

By Julia Lovett-Squires

Men's Open

100th Men’s Open kicks off evening of Mar. 7 at Twin Rivers

Mar 7, 2025 | 6:00 AM

While elusively digging in the North Battleford Historic Archives for anything relating to the community’s curling history, Doug Fehr has discovered history isn’t always clear.

“We should call it 100 Annual Men’s Open Bonspiel,” he said.

“There’s a reason I use the word open.”

A reason indeed: the inaugural bonspiel was hosted in 1912 – 113 years ago. Fehr said that the obvious missing years most likely came from both pandemics – Spanish Influenza from 1918-20 and COVID-19 from 2020-22.

“Some people think ‘Well the war years’ well, actually there were bonspiels held,” he said.

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It turns out that during the Second World War, there were events all the way through and during the Great War, only 1918 was missing.

“Times were tough, rationing was in place, they were rationing sugar for example,” he said, referring to the context of the times.

Fehr explained that as he was doing his research, he came across a letter to the editor from Unity. In it, the writer encouraged the community that if they hold a bonspiel, the winners should donate their prizes to the war effort. Fehr’s own effort – roughly 30 hours among the stacks – has resulted in finding nothing in the media of the day.

What he did discover is that in the early 1920s, organizers didn’t hold open bonspiels for at least a couple of years – that is an event that allowed teams from anywhere to take part.

“Teams would come from Lashburn, Saskatoon, Wilkie, wherever,” he said.

Historical mysteries aside, this year’s ‘spiel will take place from Mar. 7 to 9 at the Twin River’s Curling Club and they invite the community to attend. Fehr said that the plan was to run the event in pools and so far, 20 teams have signed up.

“As opposed to a traditional bonspiel draw, we’ve found that pools tend to work better when you get an unusual number of teams,” he said.

“If you go back 40-50 years, you had waiting lists to get into these events.”

The fact that they are celebrating and hosting an event that has gone on for over a century, Fehr said, speaks to the longevity of the game.

“The sport has adapted over time,” he said.

“There are things that are perhaps more obvious to a casual observer such as push brooms versus corn brooms – that’s something rather simple.”

Other things are less obvious. Look far enough back in history, and games actually stretched 12 or 13 ends. With the advent of television broadcasts, that has changed. So too have the rules – also due to TV’s desire for compelling viewing.

“The games…40-50 years ago and longer were primarily a hitting game, there weren’t rules in place like we have now called the ‘free guard zone,’” Fehr said.

As part of the celebrations, they are also hoping to feature photos, plaques, trophies of yesteryear.

“We don’t have that many left over that specifically relate to the men’s bonspiel,” he said.

As such, they welcome participants and community members to bring in any unwanted visuals or hardware.

“Bring them down. Please. We will have a display of about 150 pages worth of information specific to the men’s open bonspiel.”

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julia.lovettsquires@pattisonmedia.com

On BlueSky: juleslovett.bsky.social