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CURLING CLUB NEWS An invitation has been received from the Marathon Club to send one rink to their 5th Annual Bonspiel on January 21, ae and 23, :1955. Entry fee $10.00 per rink. Minimum of four games, On Monday, December 20 the notice of the above was posted at the Curling rink, Entries were to be made on the notice -~ deadline for entries -- Dec- ember 26, 1951, There is still time to get an entry in at the rink. Playoffs will be arranged locally by the Draw Committee Chairman, MIXED CURLING Last week in the News the rules of the mixed curling league were published. Entries for this league have to be made by December 29 at the Curling Rink. To date no entires have been marked on the Board, So how about it curlers? If your entry is not in by December 29 you will have "missed the boat", NEW CURLERS Last year we printed a little bit of the history of curling in the News, For those new to the game we re-print it below. CURLING Obscurity surrounds its basic origin with any measure of certainty. But old curling stones have been found at the bottom of the Scottish lochs bearing the date imprint of 1551. To date that's heading for five centuries of play} Organized curling clubs similar in pattern to those of today existed over two centuries ago, since there is on record a gathering of the Grand Caledonian Curling Club having met at Kilmarnock, Scotland on 22nd October 1841 with none other than club president Lord Eglington presiding, The game itself was first played in Canada in the latter years of the 18th century, But the credit for the first organized curling club in Canada goes to Montreal where it was formed in 1867 ° Perhaps the first inter-club com- petition as we know it so prominently (Cont, on next col,): Page @ CURLING CLUB NEWS (Cont.) today was that between Montreal and Quebec City played on neutral ice at Three Rivers in 1835. Quebec won. Among complaints registered by players on that occasion we can smilingly extract the following "no haggis nor even good tolerable whiskey to be had in all of the town of Three Rivers", Curling Club activities were greatly curtailed in 1837 due to the rebellion, But the game is believed that same year to have been played for the first time. in a closed rink, it being one of wood structure in the Montreal suburb of St. Ann. Kingston led Ontario in club act- ivities organizing in 1820, followed by Toronto in 1836 and Galt and Guelph in 1838, The first match in Manitoba took place on 11 December 1876. The prize was a barrel of meal which the winners donated to the Winnipeg General hospital, While stone is the standard sub- stance of the curling rock today at a weight of 40 pounds these have both varied in the past. Hardwood weighted with lead has been used and also iron, with weights having reached in the strong ole days as high as 80 pounds, The original use of iron was that of the hub of gun carriage with a handle attached used by garrison army officers who later had blacksmiths duplicate the original. The advent of widespread railroad development on the Canadian scene broadened the scope of curling to an inter-provincial status that led eventually to the nation wide competitive popularity enjoyed by the game today, So Scottish by nationality is curling that in the old days all players in Canada of non-Scottish strain were officially referred to as "barbarians", Get a load of that ye foreigners a'wearin' o! the tam, So Scottish it is one wonders how the danes got a finger in the rock pie. For "Bonspiel" derives from the Danish word "Bondespil" meaning "a rustic game", TURKEY BONSPIEL In the turkey bonspiel held over the past weekend Alex Sinkins and his wife along with the Jessops beat out Jim McDonald's rink in a very close game to take the turkeys in the first event. McDonald & Co. to eat chicken this Christmas, (Cont. on Page 9 )