March Newsletter

VCC curlers win BC Curling Club Championship

Club Champions

Congratulations to Team Guignard for winning the BC Curling Club Championship, Mar. 6-10 in Kamloops. The team is made up of VCC members - skip Jeff Guignard (far left), third Chris Faa, second Patrick Prade and lead Chris Gomes. They curl in a league at Richmond CC, but wear VCC team jackets! All four team members have lost previous BC Curling Club Championship final games in past seasons, so this win will feel good.  They will represent BC at the 2024 Everest Funeral Concierge Canadian Curling Club Championships, Nov. 17-23 in Barrie, Ontario.

 

25th Barry Naimark Charity Skins Bonspiel

The 25th annual Barry Naimark Charity Skins Bonspiel, Mar. 8-10, raised over $4500 for Camp Choice BC. Thirty-two teams took part, including three from Marpole CC and one from Denver. 

A Event Winners

A event

Hack Jobs, left to right: Conran Cosgrove, Al Masson, Alan Ehrenholz, Kevin Jeffers
B Event Winners

B event

TeamDubeau: Bobby Dubeau, Floyd Bardell, Alex Volkov, Vito Melo, Bryan Wagner
 
C Event Winners

C event

My Broom is Hollow, left to right: Kevin Rathberger, Eric Cessford, Rob Berg, Tom Sayer 

D Event Winners

D event

Sweeping Beauties and the Beast, left to right: Sanya Oh, Cher Choi, Jon Benjamin, Wade Carpenter

 

Thank you note from Camp Choice BC

On behalf of everyone at Camp Choice BC, we are immensely grateful for the support and generosity shown through the 25th Barry Naimark Charity Skins Bonspiel. The remarkable effort of raising over $4,500 goes beyond just a monetary contribution; it represents a beacon of hope and opportunity for vulnerable youth at risk.
 
A heartfelt thank you to each of the 32 teams that participated, including our guests from Denver, for their competitive spirit and camaraderie. Your involvement is a testament to the power of community and collective action. Our volunteers, staff, and sponsors deserve our deepest appreciation for their commitment and hard work that ensured the success of this event.
 
This generous donation will enable our camp to proceed in August at Zajac Ranch for Children, a vital step in providing these young individuals with a nurturing and empowering environment. The experiences and memories created at the ranch are invaluable, offering a chance for growth, learning, and joy that every child deserves.
 
We are so grateful for your contribution to making this possible. It is through the kindness and dedication of communities like ours that we can make a significant difference in the lives of those who need it the most. Thank you once again for your generosity and for believing in our mission. Together, we are creating a brighter future for vulnerable youth at risk.

 

Spring league curling available for both regular and doubles curling

Spring league curling was a hit when we tried it last year, so we're offering it again this season. There are regular curling leagues on either Monday/Wednesday evenings or Tuesday/Thursday evenings. Plus, we've also added a new spring doubles league at 9:00 pm on Tuesdays.

 

VCC hosting Curl BC competition coach course with a discount for women

Curl BC has received a Via Sport coach legacy grant that is designed to remove barriers in coaching and promote woman in coaching. As a result, VCC will be hosting a Curl BC competition coach course on the Apr. 6-7 weekend that offers women a 70 percent discount. Just go to the link below and type in coachlegacy in the discount code space. Men are welcome to register at the normal price of $184.40.

The lead facilitator will be VCC member and former coach Heather Beatty. Competition coach credentials allow you to coach a team at a provincial championship, be an instructor at events like Curl BC Rockslide Camps, gain valuable knowledge and skills to start or continue your coaching journey, understand and implement the national standards in coaching, and also join the VCC coaching staff. Contact Richard Brower at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you are interested in coaching at VCC.

Registration link: https://bc.curling.io/en/products/7709-competition-coach-course-vancouver-curling-club-2024

 

St. George's curlers win BC high school title

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Congratulations to the St. George's boys' team that won the BC high school curling championship in Kelowna, Feb 28 to Mar. 2, defeating Salmon Arm 9-8 in the final. The St. George's team, skipped by Cameron Heng (centre), curls on Wednesdays after school at VCC.

 

VCC junior curlers win bronze at BC Winter Games 

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Junior curlers from the Vancouver Club represented zone 5 at the 2024 BC Winter Games in Quensnel and came home with a bronze medal. The boys' team, coached by Suzanne Malfair, had skip Brody Dhaliwal, third Sean Brennan, second Jericho Bond and lead Aldan Wong. Congratulations!

 

Curling Day in Canada: Draw to the Button 

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We had a great time during Curling Day in Canada on Feb. 24, trying out Canada's Big ShootoutVCC participants covered the pin six times with draws from Kevin Jeffers, Brian Weinfeld, Robin Wong, Angelica Perez Anzures, Soren Hau and Patick Prade.  Watch here. 

 

Last chance to book a rental for April 

As we wind down the curlng season, we still have event rentals available, with a 10 per cent discount, in April. Book your spot here.  
 
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Canadians' baseball season brings parking restrictions

 The Vancouver Canadians start up their season in April, meaning parking restrictions come into place for Hillcrest Centre users. Home game days are April 9-14 and April 23-28. Be aware that you may have to park on the street or pay for parking on those days.
 
 
 

 

 

Spring leagues are coming up

Leagues are ending soon, but our spring leagues are starting the last week of March and early April. We have regular curling on Monday/Wednesday evenings or Tuesday/Thursday evenings, plus doubles curling on Tuesdays at 9:00 pm. For more information, visit our spring leagues webpage.


Grandy team repeats as BC champs

Grandy Team

The Clancy Grandy team from Vancouver Curling Club has repeated as BC Scotties champions. They won the Jan. 28 final in Victoria 11-3 in eight ends over Corryn Brown from Kamloops, and went through the whole event undefeated with only one game lasting 10 ends. The Grandy team will be representing BC for the second straight year in the 2024 Scotties Tournament of Hearts, Feb. 16-25 in Calgary. Left to right are lead Sarah Loken, second Lindsay Dubue, third Kayla MacMillan and skip Clancy Grandy.


February Newsletter

Harry and Meghan visit VCC

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Prince Harry tries out wheelchair curling at VCC on Friday, Feb. 16. He and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, were at VCC to celebrate curling at the Invictus Games in February of next year. Photo from CTV news. Click here for the full story.

 

Grandy team at the Scotties in Calgary

Grandy Team

The Clancy Grandy team is in Calgary, representing BC at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Calgary, Feb. 16-25. The VCC team has won the BC Scotties two years in a row. They have picked up former Brier and world champion Marcel Rocque, from the Randy Ferbey team, to coach them for the event. Left to right are lead Sarah Loken, second Lindsay Dubue, third Kayla MacMillan and skip Clancy Grandy.

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Erin leads BC U18 women to sixth place at the national championship

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 VCC coach Erin Fitzgibbon (centre) skipped her BC1 team into the playoffs at the Canadian U18 Championship in Ottawa, Feb. 4-10, after finishing with a 4-2 record in pool round robin play. The team won 6-4 over New Brunswick1 in their first playoff game, then lost 11-4 to Nova Scotia1 to be eliminated from a medal finish. They reached the Consolation A final to finish sixth overall in the 21-team field. The team would like to thank those who supported them and followed their play during the championship.

  

Charity Skins Bonspiel

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 There are still a couple of spots left in the Barry Naimark Charity Skins Bonspiel. Registration.

 

 

We need your help for the Charity Skins Bonspiel

The annual Barry Naimark Charity Skins Bonspiel is an opportunity for our sport, our club and our members to use the power of sport and our community to contribute to a local charity where we feel we can make a significant impact. To help make the bonspiel a success, the events committee is asking VCC members if they can support the bonspiel and the charity with the donation of a product or service.

Your donation can be anything from a gift certificate or service to branded or unique merchandise.  All funds raised through the silent auction at the March bonspiel and raffle of your donations are passed directly on to the Camp Choice BC, this year's charity recipient. If you would like to donate, have questions or require more information, please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

Don't be sad, you can still curl in a league in April!

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A curling rink without ice is a sad place! Delay your sadness due to league play ending by joining one of our spring leagues in April.

 

VCC team won the Brier and world championship 60 years ago

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Left to right: skip Lyall Dagg, third Leo Hebert, second Fred Britton, lead Barry Naimark

 It's now been 60 years since the Lyall Dagg team won the 1964 Brier and world championship, the lone VCC team to do so. To mark the anniversary, we present the following links:

 

BC Sports Hall of Fame

Curling Canada Hall of Fame

Calgary Herald story from world championship


January Newsletter

VCC skip wins U18 provincial girls' championship

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VCC coach Erin Fitzgibbon by the championship final scoreboard. Erin skipped a 453 League team of juniors to second place in the VCC championship last April.

VCC coach Erin Fitzgibbon is heading to Ottawa, Feb. 4-10, representing BC at the Canadian U18 Championships. Erin skipped her team to the BC title at the 2024 Safetek Profire BC U18 Girls Curling Championship over the Christmas break in Victoria, defeating a team skipped by Megan Rempel of Kelowna in the final.

In the round-robin stage, five teams finished with three wins and two losses each.  An extra tiebreaker was required to determine the four teams advancing to the playoffs. In the final, Erin's team was up 4-0 after three ends, but was up only 5-4 after six ends before eventually winning 9-4. 

“It was pretty tense," Erin said in a Curl BC interview afterwards. "We left a lot of rocks sitting, which made me a little nervous but in the end, I’m really proud of my team for pulling through. The early lead in the game was similar to what we felt during our semi-final. We reminded ourselves to keep our heads down, stay focused and don’t let the lead get ahead of us. I know one of my goals is to represent B.C. and even Canada. I’m really looking forward to the sense of pride and also being on that bigger stage will be so much fun."

 

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Left to right: coach Len Chong, fifth Bryelle Wong, lead Ella Wang, second Ashley Fenton, third Morgan Bowles, skip Erin Fitzgibbon.

 

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A VCC boys' championship team won two games in their first appearance at a provincial championship. Left to right are skip Aydan Wong, third Sean Brennan, second Brody Dhaliwal, lead Aldan Wong and coach Suzanne Malfair.

 

Grandy team wins cashspiel in Scotland before heading to provincials

Grandy

Left to right with the Mercure Perth Masters trophy: lead Sarah Loken, second Lindsay Dubue, third Kayla McMillan, skip Clancy Grandy

The Clancy Grandy team from VCC has turned around a mediocre season, compared to last year, with a win at the Mercure Perth Masters cashspiel in Scotland, Jan. 4-7. Heading into the event, the Grandy team had a 23-28 record on the cash circuit this season, dropping from 11th place in the world rankings down to 28th. The win raised their ranking to 25th.

The Grandy team will be at the BC Scotties Championship, Jan. 23-28 in Esquimalt, returning as the defending champions. VCC board member Diane Gushulak will be skipping a team in the BC Scotties as well, after leading the BC team to a third place finish in the Canadian senior women's championship earlier this season.

 

VCC ice tech skips Brazilian team at World Junior-B event

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 VCC ice tech and curler, Vitor Melo (left), skipped the Brazilian team to a 2-4 record at the World Junior-B Curling Championships in Lohja, Finland last month. Twenty-two countries took part with the Canadian team, skipped by former Richmond CC junior Johnson Tao, winning the event to qualify for the World Junior Curling Championships back in Lohja, Feb. 17-24.

 

2024 Barry Naimark Charity Skins Bonspiel coming in March

Registration is open for the 25th annual Barry Naimark Charity Skins Bonspiel. 

The Barry Naimark Charity Skins Bonspiel will be  supporting Camp Choice BC in raising funds over the next two years. Camp Choice BC’s purpose is to empower youth to create positive change in themselves and their communities by realizing the power of choice, responsibility and their effectiveness as positive leaders. Camp Choice BC gives 40-60 youth the opportunity to be kids for a week in a safe community of caring, loving adults. At-risk youth attend the camp and come from various communities and schools across British Columbia. Camp Choice BC works closely with various organizations and institutions to identify youth who would most benefit from the camp, and support them when they go back into their communities.

If anyone wishes to donate items to the event or volunteer, please contact Kathy McInnes at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

 

We need your help for the Charity Skins Bonspiel

The annual Barry Naimark Charity Skins Bonspiel is an opportunity for our sport, our club and our members to use the power of sport and our community to contribute to a local charity where we feel we can make a significant impact. To help make the bonspiel a success, the events committee is asking VCC members if they can support the bonspiel and the charity with the donation of a product or service.

Your donation can be anything from a gift certificate or service to branded or unique merchandise.  All funds raised through the silent auction at the March bonspiel and raffle of your donations are passed directly on to the Camp Choice BC, this year's charity recipient. If you would like to donate, have questions or require more information, please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

Registration open for two spring leagues

Last year we tried a spring league at the last minute and were overwhelmed with the response, so this year we're going with two of them and announcing them earlier. One league will run on Monday and Wednesday nights in April, and the other will run on Tuesday and Thursday nights starting Mar. 26. Curlers can enter a full team, partial team or individually, as we will put teams together as needed. Both leagues run for six games. Click the links below for more information and registration.

Monday/Wednesday Spring League

Tuesday/Thursday Spring League

 

VCC senior men raise funds for the food bank

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Left to right: campaign co-chair John Pike, campaign co-chair Joe Strasser and senior men's league president John Mathews

Several years ago, senior curler John Bell (who passed away in 2021), made an appeal to the Vancouver Senior Men’s Curling League members to donate to the Greater Vancouver Food Bank in support of its mission to provide healthy food for those in need. Every year since John made that challenge, the league has continued this tradition of making a personal donation in support of the food bank, culminating at the annual Christmas luncheon. This year, the members of the Vancouver Senior Men’s Curling League very generously donated $14,120.  Over the last three years, league members had donated over $34,000 to the Greater Vancouver Food Bank.  Many thanks to  campaign co-chairs John Pike and Joe Strasser for all their work co-ordinating and collecting the donations.

 

Volunteer Help Needed

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Are you a Google Ads expert? VCC has a grant for Google Ads and we need help spending it! We are seeking a volunteer with experience in Google Ads online marketing to manage and optimize campaigns focused on driving leads to the VCC website. If you think you can help us, please send an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the subject line 'Google Ads Volunteer', answering the following questions: 
 
  1. What is your experience with Google Ads?

  2. How are you connected with the VCC? 

  3. Are you able to commit to 5-10 hours a month to help us with this project?

 

CurlFit drop-in classes start Jan. 28

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CurlFit is a program specifically created to build strength where curlers need it, and we are back with new classes for 2024.

In CurlFit classes you will build strength, improve your core, steady your stability, calibrate your cardio and improve your game. You will learn to enhance your strength, stability, and overall athleticism on (and off) the ice through the use of resistance bands, weights with strength- and endurance-focused training.

We are holding sixteen CurlFit classes at the club this Spring. Classes are Sunday mornings at 8:30am and Tuesday evenings at 5:30pm. This season we are selling 5-class packs and 8-class packs which you can use on a drop-in basis.

 

VCC name tags for sale

Name Tags

VCC curlers can now purchase a VCC name tag for $10 including taxes. To get yours, click here.

 

Sweeping help at the final intermediate clinic

Sweeping Clinic

Broom pressure, technique, weight judgment and split times were the focus of intermediate sweeping clinic on Jan. 13 at the Marpole Curling Club. Thanks to clinic leader Chris Summers and all the coaches!

 

Saying goodbye to 2023 with the Hogmanay Bonspiel 

Sixteen teams took part in the annual Hogmanay bonspiel on Saturday, Dec. 30 at the Vancouver Curling Club. It was a festive year-end atmosphere as all the teams each played four games to help ring in 2024.  Hogmanay is the Scottish word for the last day of the year. It wasn't quite the last day of 2023, but it was the last bonspiel of the year at our club. Thanks to organizers Ron McKay and James Carpick for making the day filled with extra activities including the traditional iron toss, ugly Christmas sweater contest and a German band to sing Auld Lang Syne.

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  A piper led teams onto the ice to start the day. You can't get more Scottish than that!

 

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Ugly Christmas sweater team winner, Hog Line Syne. Left to right are Jarrett Morrison, Bryn Weese, Daniel Friesen, Marion Braun.

 

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Robin Wong took first place in the individual ugly Christmas sweater contest.

 

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First place team, Ryan’s Reindeer. Left to right are Vitor Melo, Ryan Thummel, Wade Carpenter, Cher Choi.

 

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 The second place team, Whole Hogline, travelled in from Chilliwack for the event. 

 

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  Old curling irons, actually made of metal, were used in the iron toss contest.

 

Stone Stealers steal an eight-ender

We had an eight-ender scored in the Tuesday Intermediate League just before Christmas. Congrats to the Stone Stealers: James Martin, Andy Dang, Ross Shen and Cole Wu. Curling Stadium video can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=5SNpU1K2Qfo. Start watching from about the 1:23:00 mark.  

 

Book a curling event at Vancouver or Marpole clubs

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Some happy customers during a curling rental at VCC.

Remember, both the Vancouver Curling and Marpole Curling Clubs have event rentals that are great for team building, birthdays, field trips and special occasions.  A two-hour, one-sheet rental accommodates up to eight people with instructors and equipment provided. Tell your friends and colleagues about this opportnity. Click here for more information and online booking.


Contact Us

Vancouver Curling Club
4575 Clancy Loranger Way
Vancouver, BC
V5Y 2M4

604-874-0122
[email protected] 
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About VCC

The Vancouver Curling Club is located at Hillcrest Centre in the facility that hosted the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games curling competitions. With eight sheets of ice in a modern, bright and accessible building, the VCC has over 1,700 members who participate in 28 weekly leagues.

The Vancouver Curling Club acknowledges that we operate on the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, and Squamish First Nations who lived here before us and continue to live here.

VISION
To be a leader in community-focused curling.

MISSION
To cultivate an environment where community members come together to deliver positive curling and social experiences for people of all ages and abilities.

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