Curlers entering Gordon M. Rupp Rink this year will notice a vastly improved ice surface.
And with good reason. The same technician who put in ice at the World Curling Championship and the Brier also worked his wonders on the five sheets at Snow Lake’s rink.
Yes, Greg Ewasko made the ice at the local rink this year.
Ewasko is a level 4 national ice technician who makes ice for a living. He’s done the Brier, the Worlds – pretty much everything but an Olympics.
“Once I do an Olympics, that’s it for me – I’m done, I’m good,” joked Ewasko, whose job has taken him to Sweden, China and Minnesota, among other locations, during a recent chat.
Ewasko, 38, got involved in ice-making early in life through his interest in curling. As a teen, he was on the high school curling team in Selkirk.
Ewasko wasn’t big on education as a younger man and after being taken under Selkirk ice technician Myles Chapin’s wing and taught the intricacies of maintaining ice; he felt it just might be the right gig for him.
The first curling club Ewasko looked after was in Beausejour, back in 1997. At that time he met an older gent, Jake Versluis, whom he says used to hang around with the likes of Shorty Jenkins and Hans Wuthrich, two of the top ice technicians in the game.
“For some reason, he just liked me and offered to show me a few things,” said Ewasko.
“He taught me how to do it properly and how to do some of the finer things in the ice-making world.”
Snowballed
From there, things snowballed and Ewasko ended up helping at a world curling event in 1999, working with icemakers Hans Wuthrich, Shorty Jenkins and Eric Montford.
A self-described “keener,” Ewasko got an invitation to work with Wuthrich. He proved a quick study, interested in the craft, and his skill evolved from there.
It wasn’t long before Ewasko met Mark Shurek and started working with him; word of mouth got him to where he is today.
Anyone walking into Snow Lake’s rink this year will see that Ewasko has much to be proud of. You are immediately struck by how uniformly white the ice surface is.
Ewasko is firm in the opinion that in order to make good ice, one must pay close attention to detail and keep good records at every step.
He has been in numerous rinks around the world, but admits that he was very impressed with Snow Lake’s facility.
“It is so clean and well maintained… you look around and everything is hung up, the garbage is emptied, there is nothing lying around,” he said.
Concluding the interview, Ewasko says he will travel anywhere he is hired to put in ice.
“This is definitely one of the farthest places I’ve come,” he laughs, adding that he looks forward to a return visit.
My Take on Snow Lake runs Fridays.
