Soon St. Thomas students will be able to curl their stones and hurry hard with its very own curling club.
Trish Henheffer is in her fourth year, and has finally gone through with her plans of bringing curling to the university.
“I have always wanted to. I came to STU and noticed that they don’t have any curling, but I thought it wouldn’t work out because there wasn’t really any curling teams in any other universities around New Brunswick,” said Henheffer, who has been curling for the past ten years.
She believes it’s finally time she shares her sport with the rest of the university.
“Just in this past year I thought I would do a club, just to see who was interested from STU and then we can all just curl together against one another,” she said.
Henheffer put together an application for a new group and gave it to the student union, hoping she would hear back in time to set up a booth for the Groups and Societies Fair. She did, and immediately went to work, creating a Facebook page and baking cupcakes with curling stones on them.
“At first I was nervous, because I thought it might be hard to do all by myself, but I had my couple best friends come and help me out,” said Henheffer. Her and her two friends, Scott Lingley and Meg Walls, make up the executives of the curling society.
“Then I mentioned it to a few more of my friends who are experienced curlers and they were also really interested.”
Experience isn’t necessary though. The club is open to anyone who is interested. Students are invited to go to free curling clinics put on by the Capital Winter Club in mid-October, to get some experience and a taste for the sport. After that, Henheffer hopes the group can meet a couple times a month to practice and play. At the end of the season, she hopes they can put on a tournament at the Capital Winter Club.
“I’m hoping to get funding from the student union,” said Henheffer, who wants the money to go towards the end-of-season tournament.
“We got quite few people to come and put down their names, and it seems like people are really interested. I have high hopes that it will work out.”
With the curling season beginning in October, and running until March, Henheffer hopes curling will catch on so she can share her passion with others.
“I love it. I’ve curled forever. It’s a fun sport, so I want to show it to other people and get other people to come out.”
