Despite not having a curling rink in Hay River for the last two winters, two community residents will be off to the Canadian Masters Curling Championships next month in British Columbia.
Skip Paul Delorey and Noel Demarcke, along with two curlers from Yellowknife, won the two-team NWT playdowns earlier this month to qualify for the championships.
They played against the Brad Whitehead team from Yellowknife in a best-of-five format starting on March 2.
The Hay River/Yellowknife team – which included Ben McDonald and Garry Tkachuk from the capital city – won three straight games to earn the right to go to the national tournament.
"I was a bit surprised in a way because we haven't had a curling rink for two years and I haven't thrown hardly any rocks all winter long as I haven't played any games all winter, actually," said Delorey. "So I didn't know what to really expect. I had Noel Demarcke curling with me and he hasn't done any curling either this winter. So it was a little bit iffy going into it."
The skip said he managed to throw a few stones in Yellowknife a couple of weeks before the playdowns.
"I didn't play any games, but I threw a few rocks," he said, adding he also spared for a Yellowknife team the day before the playdowns began. "So I got a little bit of practice in, but not a heck of a lot to go into a playdown."
Delorey believes the old saying about riding a bike might also apply to curling.
"But we were a little rusty there's no doubt about that," he said.
Delorey noted the same thing happened going into another tournament two years ago with a different team that also included Demarcke.
"We went to the Canada 55+ Games two years ago when we hadn't curled for about six months before going to that and we managed to win gold there," Delorey recalled.
The skip said that, despite being over in three games, the NWT playdowns were very close, with two of the games going into extra ends.
The last game was won 9-5 without the need of extra time.
The Canadian Masters Curling Championships will be held in the B.C. communities of Surrey and White Rock from April 1-8.
It will be Delorey's fourth time playing in the championships, which are for curlers 60 years of age and above.
"We always managed to win a few games each time that we went," he said, noting it is very competitive curling.
"Our goals are to try to win a few games and do the best we can," he added. "We don't have our expectations too, too high because of our situation with the amount of curling that we've done."
The Hay River curlers won't be getting any practice in the community's new curling rink.
During the Arctic Winter Games, it will be used for volleyball and no ice will be put in until next season.
"We're not going to bother putting ice in," said Delorey, who is a director with the Hay River Curling Club and its icemaker, explaining it would only be for a month at a time of year when people are looking at doing other things. "We kind of decided that it's not worth our while doing it."
In advance of the national championships, Delorey said he hopes to get in some practice in Yellowknife.