Crokicurl ready for its Calgary closeup

Take one curling rink, one crokinole board game, a bunch of old bleachjugs, mixed in with some old fence posts, and what have you got?

Crokicurl.

That's the name of the newest Canadianwinter sport, and starting Saturday, thanks to the Acadia Recreation Complex on 90th Avenue S.E., Calgary is about to get a taste of it.

Erika Topola, the Acadia Community Association's director of membership, was inspired to constructa crokicurlrink despite having never played curling or much crokinolefor that most modernof reasons: Facebook.

That started when Topola read an article about the popularity of crokicurl in Winnipeg, where it was introduced in early 2017.

Inspired by social media

"Last year, when the Winnipeg [crokicurl] article came out, I had put it on our community Facebookpage," Topola said, on the Calgary Eyeopener."And the engagement on that post alone pretty much outweighs what we [usually] do in the whole entire year."

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The community association applied for funding to Activate YYCand got it.

On Saturday, the crokicurlrink opens for action. It's free and everyone is welcome and Topolafeels confident there will be interest.

"The [Acadia] rec centre is actually centred around curling and ice sports," she said, "so we definitely have that knowledge base. And lots of people have crokinole boards. I've played it but I'm no good."

Crokicurl's arrival in Calgary coincides with its launch in Saskatoon, where a temporary crokicurlrink has been constructed downtown.

Topolasaid that crokicurlis good for small groups of people to play, but that it can accommodate large groups, too.

"Typically, you want fourpeople, becausejust like crokinole, you are on a team and across the board from each other," Topola said."But really, you could have sixto eightpeople and switch off your positions,so you could really make it work for any amount of people you bring out."

It's also all-ages and all-abilities friendly, so don't feel any social anxiety about not being a crokicurlprodigy.

"It's not hard to do," she said. "The jugs are quite light. They're just weighted down enough so that if you get near the button in the middle, it will dump in there. Kids can play, adults can do it anyone can do it."

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With files from the Calgary Eyeopener