Photo: Randy Nelson

Curler's Corner is a column written by the Kamloops Curling Club's Randy Nelson. Published each Monday morning for the next several weeks, this column will highlight moments of Tournament Capital curling history, and noteworthy athletes from over the decades.

It was a great night for president Cy Glover and the rest of the Kamloops curlers when celebrations were held for the official opening of the new four-sheet curling club on Dec. 7, 1949 at 700 Victoria St.

It was deemed to be one of the finest curling clubs in all of Canada at the time. The club boasted large change rooms, great viewing, a lunch counter, men’s and women’s washrooms, an office and a large club room upstairs. Glover praised those that helped sell debentures, including D. O. Vicars, treasurer, W. H. Neill, Secretary, Harry Dalgleish, J. T. Passmore, Ross Archibald, Dr. H. A. Wallace, W. C. Browne, W. J. Munro and J. A Beaton.

The club had formed in March of 1949 under the societies act and sold debentures at $100 each with a limit set of 200. They would not start to build the rink until they had $10,000 in the bank. It was hard work, but they sold all 200 and even started a waiting list.

It wasn’t publicly announced, but Glover had personally ordered and paid for the 64 curling rocks needed for the four sheets. The cost was $65 a pair, or a total of $2,080. The rocks were being delayed, and Glover feared they wouldn’t arrive in time so he ordered another 40 rocks from a company in Vancouver. Then, all the rocks showed up at the same time.

The shortage of curling rocks throughout B.C. made them easy to sell and recoup the costs.

Mr. Glover praised the help from city council, city engineer W. H. Sparks, Taylor and Son (building contractors), and the Kamloops and District Memorial Recreation Centre Association.

Judge J. Ross Archibald stated this was a night he’d long lived for, and Glover was “the sparkplug behind the building of the rink.” This is why our meeting room is called the Cy Glover Room.

Local MLA Syd Smith also praised the work of Glover and all those involved. Acting Mayor J. E. Fitzwater also attended and welcomed the new facility to Kamloops. Smith and Fitzwater each threw a stone to officially open the ice for play. Neither made it to the house, but no one cared, except maybe the newspaper reporter who added the information to the article.

Do you have a piece of curling history?

Here we are in 2025, getting closer to a plan to replace the rink with a larger, state-of-the-art world class facility.

We won’t be able to replace the friendships, memories, successes and great times the building holds, however we can maintain and transfer much of this into a new building.

We’d like to invite those who might have a piece of Kamloops history hidden away in a basement or attic to contact us. It may be the classic old wooden case that carries two curling rocks, an old broom, old photographs (or a copy), a curling sweater, a crest or even a very old trophy.

We would like to believe some of the original trophies, dating from over 100 years ago, are still around. We plan to feature an historic display in the new building to showcase some of this remarkable history. You can contact Randy Nelson at [email protected] or call him at 250- 374-6068 if you have something to share.