Discussions

The game of Curling arrived in Canada in an informal way before 1800, but it was not fully established here until 1807, when the Montreal Curling Club was formed by a group of Scottish Immigrants. It was the first Sports Club in Canada and the first Curling Club in North America. With the abundance of frozen rivers and lakes in Canada, and the many Scottish immigrants who had emigrated here, curling was a natural sport to be adapted into the game we know today.  
 
Curling Clubs were formed in Kingstone in 1820, Quebec in 1821, and Halifax in 1824. In 1835 inter-city matches were being played.  
By 1839, locally manufactured curling stones made of granite were being sold in Toronto for eight dollars a pair. In 1840 the first book on Curling was published by James Bicket, called “The Canadian Curlers Manual”.  
 
By 1858 the game had grown to the point that interprovincial matches were played. In 1865, the first International Bonspiel was held in Buffalo between American and Canadian Clubs. The first club for women was formed in Montreal in 1894.  
 
A Captain Wastie has the honour to be named “the father of Curling” in Brandon. It is thought that the game arrived in Brandon in the winter of 1883-84 when the first Rink was made just north of the CPR tracks. There were three sheets of ice available for play, with a canvas roof overhead to keep the snow off the ice surface. The rocks were purchased in Winnipeg for $25 a pair, and they were not all a uniform size. The games were 16 ends long and teams played 4 games in one day. Andrew Kelly, A. R. Erwin, John Hanbury, Peter Payne, Captain Wastie, and John Hurst promoted these early games. Sometime later the Curling Rink was located on the southeast corner of 10th Street and Princess Avenue, and the third Rink was on the northeast corner of 10th Street and Victoria Avenue.  
 
The first district match was played in 1888 between Brandon and Virden, and was won by Brandon by a single shot. Dr. Sam Coxe was skipper of one of the winning teams, and it was his final shot that won the match. The other curlers awarded him the lone medal that was the award for winning the competition. On Dr. Coxe’s team were Sandy Fleming, Arthur McLean and Norman Johnstone. John Hanbury, Dan Stewart, skipped the second Brandon team with Andrew Jukes, William Johnson, and Dan Stewart on its line up.  
Many prominent citizens were interested in the game of curling in the early days, and people like A. E. Philip, James Mann, William Dowling, Murdoch McKenzie, and many others who followed to continue to give the city able talent with the curling stones.  
 
In 1895 the District Curling matches for the Tucket Trophy had ended in Brandon some weeks before, but ice conditions early in March had remained good, and so the local rock-and-broom enthusiasts planned to hold a Bonspiel, the first in Brandon.  
 
Reports of the event are sparse, but it is noted that seven surfaces were provided using the facilities of skating and curling rinks: ten teams from outside the boarders of Brandon and eleven local teams competed.  
The following November Curling was resumed with a match that a Royal visitor by the name of Lord Aberdeen was Skip and who’s team won by five points over a team Skipped by A.E. Philips.  
 
In the winter of 1902-03 the first Scottish team toured Canada giving wide spread exposure to the sport. The Scottish team was skipped by Reverend Kerr, sand they played eleven matches against Canadian clubs: they lost most of them. A return tour was arranged in 1908, and the Canadians won twenty-three of twenty-six matches including three international contests for the Strathcona Cup.  
I am sorry to say that Winnipeg, and not Brandon by 1911 had became the Curling center of Canada.  
 
Curling took on a head of steam in Brandon in the 1920’s when a dozen good rinks emerged as strong contenders for honours all over Canada, and the interest still exists today. Among the most notable city and district curlers of those great years were Pete and Dune Forsyth, Lorne Story of Oak Lake, Wes Gibson of Hartney, Marsh Peters of Wawanesa, Eddie McKittrick, George Irwin, Percy Fenwick, W. W. Rathwell, Sandy Webster, G. C. ‘Curly’ MacKay, Archie Leech, Johnny Rees and of course, one of the finest, W. A. ‘Bunny’ Bannister of Carberry.  
The Air Canada Silver Broom was established for the world curling championship in 1968, and Canada won the first five competitions.  
One of the many highlights of Brandon’s Curling history was in the centennial year of 1982 when Brandon hosted the Brier during the early days of March. A week of curling bliss reached a fever pitch when Mel Logan of Souris representing Manitoba after winning the provincial birth in Winnipeg skipped his rink to the semi finals only to loose to the Al Hackner foursome of Thunder Bay, the eventual winners of the Brier. Hackner also went on to West Germany to win the World Championships.  
 
Source: Cudden, J.A. The MacMillan Dictionary of Sports and Games. New York: MacMillan Press, 1980.  
 
Grosvenor House Press. Winners: A century of Canadian Sport. Toronto. Gosvenor House  
Press, 1985.  
 
G.F. Barker. Brandon A City.  
 
Brandon Sun Archives.