The curling going on Sunday at the curling club was of a type that experienced curlers might not have recognized, but young curlers and their parents had a blast.
At the youth year-end curling bonspiel, young curlers, with parents and siblings in tow, played a distinctive version of the game they love. First came the curling, with a wildly diverse array of skills on show, from curlers who had never set foot on a curling sheet to young curlers who had been honing their craft for some time.
At the completion of an end, rocks were scattered from hotline to hack, with a few even making it into the house.
At the end of the game, teams opened up envelopes, in which scoring was explained. Inside slips of paper would read: 'only rocks on the left side count' or some other variation of scoring guideline.
For some teams it was a boon, giving scores to the peppering of rocks, to others, with rocks around the button, it was a bane, with some teams bemoaning their skill at putting the rock in the house and thus finding it not counted. But to everyone on the ice, the game was lots of fun.
The program ran for 13 weeks, with 26 curlers, aged seven to 12.