EDMONTON -- A pair of friends at Pigeon Lake wanted to help the local seniors get out and have fun this winter, so they built a curling rink right on the lake.
“We always think about the young people and the families and stuff, but we forget about the seniors. And out here in the rural communities, curling is huge. It’s huge,” Corey Kozack told CTV News Edmonton.
He and Darcy Carey built the rink, despite a lack of curling knowledge.
“We’ve never curled a minute in our lives,” Kozack said.
The pair used Google to find the specifications, and they made sure it measured close to perfect. The rings were created using food colouring.
And if you build it, they will come.
“I think it’s great!” said one woman using the rink on Sunday afternoon.
“You don’t often get to curl like this!” said another. “If you get the rocks down to the other end, that’s a plus."
The ice on the frozen lake, which is about two feet thick at this point, presents some challenges for curling.
“It does crack and heave, you can see around here and whatnot,” Kozack said.
“It’s lake curling. I don’t think they’ll do the Brier on it anytime soon, but you never know.”
But for the two friends, the rink wasn’t just about curling, it was about bringing people together.
“The more people that know each other, the safer our community is going to be. If we all get together and we do things like this, we’re going to be able to look after each other. “
“It’s about community spirit.”
With files from CTV News Edmonton's Dave Mitchell.
