Sweetheart Spiel 2014
The annual Women’s Sweetheart Spiel was held at the club on February 14th and 15th. This year saw around 32 women participate on eight teams and enjoy two days of great curling, great food, wine and cheese and lots of fun. Compu Clone Computer Solutions was back again this year as the corporate sponsor, Martin Campbell again helped provide Friday night’s wine and cheese and the Schooner men all kicked in to fund the dinner on Saturday that was enjoyed by all curlers and guests. High winds and some wild weather on Friday caused a power outage at the club that shut down the ice plant and forced the shortening of the second draw of the evening. The Schooner ice crew chief, Brian Laughlin stayed at the club along with Russell Fitzgerald and Martin Campbell until around 3:30 am Saturday morning in hope that Nova Scotia Power would arrive to restore the power. When they finally left the power was still out. Luckily, NSP did arrive sometime shortly after that and when Wayne Bonnell and Martin arrived back at around 6:30 am on Saturday the power had been restored and the plant was brought back online. Some maintenance on the ice was required but the ice crew was able to get the ladies curling again with only a one hour delay to the scheduled 9:00 am start. Some shuffling of the schedule was required but all Saturday draws went off without further incident. Between draws the ladies and all guests were treated to delicious, hot soup made by Frank Kococki and when curling was complete everyone sat down to dinner prepared by MacKinnon’s catering and served up by some of the Schooner men. The buffet style dinner included chicken, meatballs, rice, cold cuts, salads and dessert and it was enjoyed by all. Once dinner was complete the final order of business for the weekend was prize presentations. This year, first place overall and the Sweetheart jackets were taken by the Lynnette Chiasson rink. Joining skip Lynnette in victory was third Jolene MacLellan, second Laura Rafuse and lead Charlene Kokocki. Congratulations to the Chiasson rink and thank you for a great performance. Second place was taken by the Marie Young rink. Marie was joined by Barb Thistle, Nadine Drover and Glenis Nathanson. Rounding out the top three was the rink skipped by Robina Boudreau with third Janet Gallivan, second Kathy Gale and lead Eilleen Bonnell. The remaining teams in order of finish were the Raylene Dejeet rink, the Mary Foley rink, the Evelyn Hebb rink from Baddeck, the Amy MacPherson rink and the Lynn Kelly rink. All curlers were presented with prizes that they got to pick from the wonderful array that was available on the prize table. After the ladies were awarded their prizes, the spiel’s main organizer, Lynn Kelly, presented a thank you gift, a beautiful engraved watch, to Bill Farr, owner of Compu Clone Computer Solutions, who has been the main sponsor of the Sweetheart Spiel for the last few years. Thank you gifts, embroidered Schooner jackets, were also presented to Russell Fitzgerald for all his work in helping organize and run the spiel and to Martin Campbell for providing the wine and cheese on Friday. Lynn wasn’t finished yet as she also had a thank you for Ice crew chief Brian Laughlin and Wayne “Bull” Bonnell for all the extra time and work they put in on the weekend to make sure the spiel could continue. The Schooner Curling Club would like to thank all of the sponsors, Lynn Kelly for all her work in making this spiel possible and all the members who helped with the organization, preparation and running of the spiel. Thank you to everyone who brought food on Friday to add to the wine and cheese, to the Schooner men for helping fund Saturday’s dinner, to Frank Kococki for making his soup, to the bartenders, the ice crew and to everyone else who helped out in any way. And, last but not least, a huge thank you to all the ladies from the Schooner, Sydney and Baddeck curling clubs who participated and make this such a wonderful event. We hope to see you all back next year.
