The Town of Huntsville will be showcased on TSN as a curling town next year, as the Huntsville Curling Club celebrates its 125th anniversary on Curling Day in Canada.
Curling Day in Canada is an annual nationwide celebration of the sport, typically held in late February, with the next one set for January 31, 2026. It’s a day for clubs and fans to connect, participate in events, and celebrate the sport.
Ron Kreutzer, President of the Huntsville Curling Club, and Halley Clover, Executive Director at Huntsville Lake of Bays Chamber of Commerce, told Huntsville Council at its December 10 meeting that they had joined forces with the Huntsville Downtown BIA to create a Crokicurl rink at River Mill Park.
A Crokicurl rink is an octagonal ice surface that combines the Canadian games of curling and the board game Crokinole. It features curling rocks slid towards painted scoring rings and a central “button.” Players aim to score points by landing rocks in high-value zones and knocking opponents’ rocks out.
“Originally, we had just planned to have it for that sort of weekend, but we thought it would just add so much more excitement to downtown for as long as we could have it,” explained Clover, who said the plan is to build it right in front of the ice skating rink at River Mill Park towards Dara Howell Way. It will have a diameter of 25 feet “and we have plastic stones that our team will monitor on the weekend for people to use, and then it’s sort of like Crokinole, it’s Crokinole and Curling… so it’s really exciting.”
Kreutzer said the TSN sports network chooses one curling club in celebration of Curling Day in Canada each year. “And we are very fortunate and very honoured by the fact that they chose the Huntsville Curling Club this year. So you know, we think of this as a great opportunity to promote not just curling and the curling club by the Town of Huntsville in general.” He said the club has a slew of activities lined up for the day, primarily at the Huntsville Curling Club but also at River Mill Park with Crokicurl.
Kreutzer said the club will also host “The Great Canadian Shootout” competition, where teams from across Canada do a draw to the “button,” and the team that gets the most draws to the button wins $5,000. He said there will also be a celebrity curling match and youth curlers to feature the club’s youth curling program. The club will also host an open house and invite the public in to try curling at no charge.
Council applauded the initiative.
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Reading through the comments, it is clear there are first class grinches reading here. Tell me, are city taxes used to pay for the snow plowing in front of your house?
Tamara (Doppler ed.) wrote me and told me that no tax dollars are expected to be involved in the installation – it’s a project all funded by (the Chamber), BIA and the Huntsville Curling Club to be ready for Jan31 2026 Curling Day with schedules etc to follow. I am guessing if you like this, the Curling club would not refuse your donations to support this. So Happy New Year!
Can the town tell us how much it’s going to cost and maintain?
Since the Curling Club is going to be the one that benefits the most from this how much money are they putting up or are they wanting the taxpayers to foot the bill?
Wonderful! We need lots of Winter activity for all ages.
Thanks to all supporters.
Very exciting. I can hardly wait to try the crokinole curling!