Alberta Avenue to host unique new game

Community members have the chance to play crokicurl this winter Alberta Ave Community League is hanging up its collective skates and creating a crokicurl rink instead. Crokicurl, a game Winnipeg […]

Talea Medynski January 1, 2019

Community members have the chance to play crokicurl this winter

Alberta Ave Community League is hanging up its collective skates and creating a crokicurl rink instead. Crokicurl, a game Winnipeg architects created in 2017, is a combination of crokinole and curling.

Crokinole is a Canadian game created in the 1860s. According to the Landezine International Landscape Award website, players “flick wooden discs across an octagonal wooden board, with the aim of having the most discs in the highest scoring circles at the end of the match.”

Crokicurl uses crokinole’s octagonal board shape and scoring rules, but players throw the jugs or curling rocks like they would in a curling game.

Lyall Pedersen, a volunteer who is helping make the rink, said the league decided to make a crokicurl rink and a curling rink after looking at dwindling numbers of public skaters.

“We spent a lot of volunteer hours building something that had very little use,” he said.

Karen Mykietka, the league’s facility and program manager, added, “The area already has a number of great outdoor skating rinks: Delton, Eastwood, Parkdale-Cromdale, Spruce Avenue. Crokicurl and curling don’t require the public to have special equipment, so it will be accessible to more people. We also have the hockey net out if people want to do hockey shooter practice (not on ice).”

But making the rink depends a lot on the weather. It can’t be too warm or too cold.

“Ice can be kind of finicky,” explained Pedersen. The crokicurl rink requires quite a few layers of ice, and then the lines must be painted on, and the rink flooded again. He’s hoping to have the rink open by early January.

“We hope to have regular weekend afternoon hours as well as special winter fun events,” said Mykietka.

Details will be posted on albertaave.org and the league’s Facebook page.


Featured Image: Lyall Pedersen is helping make the crokicurl rink at Alberta Ave Community League. | Talea Medynski

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