(CURLSASK/X)

By Ben Tompkins

CurlSask

Hudson Bay wins Curling Club of the Year

Jun 11, 2025 | 5:17 PM

The Hudson Bay Curling Club has been named the 2024/25 CURLSASK Club of the Year.

Clubs are awarded for creating a positive, welcoming community space, increasing youth and adult participation, and striving for excellence in all club operations.

“It was a surprise, we honestly didn’t even know the award was a thing, and we didn’t know any of the criteria. CURLSASK never contacted us about it, so obviously they did their reconnaissance and determined that we were doing the best,” said Club President Mitch Zurba.

“We don’t do this for the recognition, it’s just for the love of the sport and making sure that our community has recreation in the wintertime.”

For the Hudson Bay Curling Club, memberships had been going down over the last few years, as their older members retired from the sport.

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That meant that in just the last couple of seasons, they had to focus on getting the younger generation out to continue to grow the game.

“We never had a youth curling program prior to three or four years ago. Since we started that, our memberships in our curlers below the age of 16 have gone from 20 to 45 to now over 60 in just the last year. We just want to do everything we can to make sure that the curling rink stays open for another 60 years,” Zurba added.

“We get a trophy to display for the year and a banner, as well as a $1,500 grant from CURLSASK for winning this award. That’s a really nice touch because I know most small-town clubs are probably right on the line of either staying in the cash positive or losing money, so every little bit counts, that’s for sure.”

Some, if not all of that money, is likely to go to the club’s fundraising efforts, as they deal with the constant maintenance of a now more than 50-year-old rink.

They’ve also been without a kitchen for the last pair of seasons, which they will have open for the beginning of the upcoming one.

“We had to close our kitchen, so we haven’t had the ability to host any bigger events. That’s been a big push to have that re-open so that we can now apply to host some future tournaments. With us winning the club of the year, we were actually approached by the youth winter games to potentially host a district competition next year,” continued Zurba.

“We’re also working with a 50-year-old ice plant, so a decent amount of maintenance goes on every year with our compressors and our chiller… I’m just hoping that we can kind of use this award as a stepping stone to show people the good things that are coming from all of our fundraising and getting the kids out, and that we’re heading towards our goal of hosting big events and getting more people out curling. We want to get a lot of pride in this facility.”

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Ben.Tompkins@pattisonmedia.com

On X @BenTompkins_8