Murray Wood: Who's hot and who's not
Every Friday, Murray Wood takes a look at the big news stories and decides who's hot... and who's not. This week's list ...
Along with their shoes and broom, curlers in Regina will have to bring their proof of COVID-19 vaccination to be able to play in the coming year.
Both the Callie and Highland clubs are implementing a vaccine mandate for 2021-22.
It’s something the clubs have been thinking about since before the provincial government announced its mandate.
“The vast majority of our members and curlers were almost demanding that we go that way,” said Dean Moulding, manager at the Callie.
“We had a lot of people calling, nervous about what was going to happen with the season — we got shut down last year. They just wanted reassurance that the club was going to do all it could to make it a safe environment for all our members.”
All curlers, coaches, officials, staff, volunteers and patrons over the age of 11 will have to show proof of vaccination at the start of the season.
Masks will be required in all areas of the clubs except when people are eating or drinking and when they’re out on the ice playing — though people are being encouraged to continue wearing masks even then.
Moulding said club officials are also sanitizing everything two or three times a day.
And these rules are consistent across the city’s two clubs.
There were several outbreaks at curling events last season, including at least one where there was a death. Moulding agrees that might have curlers in the community a little more accepting of safety measures.
“It kind of got in a bunch of curling communities and Saskatchewan got hit pretty hard,” said Moulding.
Registration for the coming year is down about 20 per cent from last year, but Moulding said that drop is mostly coming from people who are nervous about high COVID-19 case numbers, not a reaction to the vaccine mandate.
“With the COVID numbers in the province, people are a little nervous right now (and are) a little slow to commit to some things,” said Moulding.
Many in the community are hoping for a full season; last year, things were shut down after about five weeks of play because of the virus.
It was particularly tough for the Callie. Moulding said over the past 18 months the club has lost many thousands of dollars.
“It wasn’t just the curling. We do a lot of summer events here too — weddings, dog shows, train shows, all kinds of things — and so last summer and this summer we were basically shut down. So we’ve had five, six weeks of revenue in the last 18 months. It has hit us quite hard,” said Moulding.
The club isn’t doing too badly, according to Moulding, because it had recently amalgamated with the Tartan Curling Club. But Moulding said the question is: “How long can you sustain such big losses?”
