by Ron Bedford
(ed note: This is one of a series of historical reflections writen by past and present members for our 50th anniversary season)
The beginnings of the City View Curling Club have been well covered in other’s recollections in this series, so I will not dwell on that. I don’t recall how I heard about the City View plans in the summer of 1957, but a telephone call brought Claude Murray to my door to sign on the dotted line. If my memory is correct, curling began with an introductory bonspiel near Christmas. I happened to be drawn against John McCavour who used a brush instead of a broom, the only Club member to do so for many years. The first Club Directory was largely the work of Arnie Rothschild about 1969 or 1970.
Although there were few experienced curlers in the beginning, it was not long before many Club teams were winning various competitions around the city and the Ottawa Valley. In those days, many of the top teams of Eastern Ontario entered these competitions: the City of Ottawa; the Glebe Invitational; various outlying club spiels. There were also Branch events, one of which was the Branch Governor-Generals which was a double team event. Games were twelve ends and the combined scores of the two teams determined the winner. In one instance two City View teams had to curl sixteen ends before a winner was declared! One pleasant memory of mine, as a finalist in the competition, was the chance to shake the hand of Governor-General Vanier at Rideau Hall. A highlight for me was skipping a team to the Ontario Mixed finals in about 1965. Curling with me were Sheila Davis, Bob Wilson, Ruth Graves, (and Claire Atkinson). This was in the early stages for this competition. The Ontario champion was determined from a straight knockout format with eight teams. We lost on last rock in the semi-final to the eventual winner – a powerful team skipped by Ray Grant (who had already won the Ontario Brier entry) playing with his Brier third and a former Ontario ladies champion.
A few anecdotes come to mind. In the 1959 City of Ottawa I curled with Vic Prest when we were drawn against the Cal Murchison team on Sunday afternoon on Sheet 2 at City View. In those early days good crowds came out to watch, so there was a good City View contingent on hand to cheer us on. This was one of Vic’s most embarrassing moments: it was a terrible game with 3’s and 4’s commonplace! Both teams ended in double digits. I think we eventually won by something like 16 to 14!
In 1967 the Grey Cup was played in Ottawa and was preceded by a week-long bonspiel. Late in this competition we were playing in a very tight game at Lansdowne. The game on the adjacent sheet had already finished and the ice man was cleaning the sheet. I was in the hack and had just released the last rock of the game (an out-turn draw shot of some kind near the edge of the sheet) when the ice-man began to pebble the other sheet. Ernie Dixon was sweeping my rock when the pebble splashed across his glasses! My rock got caught up in the pebble and stopped about half-way down the sheet!
Another time, probably in the late 1970s, Vic Prest called me on the opening day of the City of Ottawa. He had an entry but was unable to play the first game; could I come out and skip that game. I agreed. His team included Sandy Murray, Bob Murray, and Brian McQuaid. When I arrived they looked quite disappointed because they had bought new team sweaters. I said to save them for the next game when Vic would be back. These were white sweaters with large black lettering on the backs. The letterings read, in turn, M. Prest, O. Prest, D. Prest, and V. Prest! I never heard Vic’s reaction!
