• Last Updated Wednesday, 11 November 2009 19:54

by Don Muldrew

(ed note: This is one of a series of historical reflections writen y past and present members for our 50th anniversary season)

The first curling at City View was in December of 1957. We were supposed to start earlier but as usually happens there were delays. Carleton Heights was also building a rink around this time and it too was not ready on time so they built an outside sheet of ice. They invited City View to participate in a few friendly games on this sheet. I can¹t remember who won but it was an interesting experience. In our game, I believe it was snowing lightly so sweeping became doubly important. Perhaps this is how sweeping originated. 

The first game I ever played in Ottawa was in another friendly at one of the old rinks. I was playing lead or second for Claude and Sandy Murray. I had just come from Winnipeg where most shots were takeouts and they were thrown damn fast. Curling with rocks, rather than irons, only started in Ottawa in1954 so Claude and Sandy were still playing as though the rocks were irons—draw, draw, and draw. I was very confused and wondering if joining City View was such a good idea. Well of course, it was. 

At the start, most of the men members had never curled before and the skips were those who had. Curling improved rapidly and within a few years we had some of the best teams in the city with curlers like Wagner, McCavour, Leach, Prest and others. The rapid improvement in City View curling was due, I think, to the introduction of the ladder system in 1960-61. Before this, the players were classified as skip, third, second, lead, and the teams were chosen by a “draw from the hat”. In the ladder system, any 4 members could make a “fixed team”. There were initially 30 teams in 5 sections of 6 teams. Each team played 2 games per week. At the end of each round robin the top 2 teams in a section moved up and the bottom 2 moved down. Hence teams played at their level and the competition was excellent. 

One of the most colorful City-view characters was Dave Ardley. In his first year of curling he said to me: “What does a person have to do around here to become a skip?” I said just find 3 guys who want to curl with you. He did and he had a great team. He had an amusing delivery. After he finished delivering a rock, his nose would be on the ice and his right foot would be 6 feet straight above his head. Once, he entered a bonspiel in Montreal and being short on vacation leave, took sick leave. A Montreal-Gazette photographer saw his delivery and took his picture. It appeared on the front page of the Gazette and also the front page of either the Ottawa Citizen or Ottawa Journal.