The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
The "Grey Cup Bonspiel" was originally conceived in a hotel room in The Pas between curling games. Doug Gourlay, Zeke Nowasad and Merle Sproxton thought having a Grey Cup Bonspiel at Willowpark would be a good thing. It turned out to be a great idea and in 1969, the year Merle Sproxton was president of Willowpark, the idea became a reality. The first bonspiel saw 40 rinks take to the ice Ð 29 from Flin Flon, five from Thompson, three from The Pas, two from Lynn Lake (they had to take a week off from work and came by train) and one team from Snow Lake. The First Event was the Ed Longmore Memorial with the Arnold Nowasad rink of Doug Gourlay, Bill East and Wilf Watt winning it. The second event in that inaugural year was the Golf Pro Shop Event with the Barry Effler rink from The Pas winning it. He had B. Donaldson, M. Harvey and B. Jackson curling with him. The third event was the Jack Freedman Event and the Bob Quinn team of Grant Adams, Jack Billy and Don Rachuk won that event. For those who are keen on the history, there were four prizes in each event, and the winners were: First event: 1- Arnold Nowasad, 2- Jim Robertson, 3- Ted Sparling and 4- Ray Quinn. Second event: 1- Barry Effler (The Pas) 2- Lawrence Peppler, 3- E. Davis (Thompson) and 4- Lee Davis. Third event: 1- Bob Quinn, 2- Bob Lawrence, 3- Al Lindgren and 4- George Wiebe (Thompson). Thanks to Merle Sproxton for keeping the "paper clippings" that this information was gleaned from! The bonspiel grew in entries to the point where there was a waiting list to get in. The limit was 48 rinks. The curling started at 5 p.m. on Friday and they curled through the night with the finals being at 6 p.m. on Sunday evening. The "Snake Pit" could really tells some tales! The bonspiel is still held annually, however last weekend the 34th annual Grey Cup Bonspiel saw only 16 entries, but there were some really great games and those who did participate had a good time. There are no sponsors anymore. The prizes are money (from the entry fee). The semifinals were played on Saturday night for the 'A/B' events and the semi for the 'C' event went on Sunday morning. The finals were played Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m. In the 'A' event the Bob Benson team of Ryan Watt, Trevor Watt and Kelly Davis took on the Jim Quinn team of Blaine Gogal, Sheldon Koczka and Vinny Morran. Quinn seemed to have control through most of the game and finally won it 6 to 3. The 'B' event had Terry Logren's team of Bev Baker, Kirk Huntley and Len Bolton taking on the Don Holmes team of Roy Henry, Bill Pico and Ray Lavergne. The game was a short one ending in the 4th end with the Holmes team drawing a blank, the score was 7 to zip for Lofgren. In the 'C' event Ed Sattelberger's team of Ken Tetreault, Hugh Quinn and Terry Boydell won over the Salahub team of Tony Flynn, Darren Hynes and Dave Salahub. It was a fairly close game till the 6th end when Sattelberger cracked a four ender and then stole one in the 7th. The bonspiel was well organized. Hopefully next year will see more entries. It was a very entertaining weekend.
