// TALES FROM SHEET NINE


Weather woes were common curling concerns in 1945


By David Garber, Emeritus Editor, dj.garber@tds.net


ago, started collecting back issues and eventu- ally, with plenty of help from several curler- friends, assembled a nearly complete collection. Still missing: Volume 1, #1 (Jan. 1, 1945). Should a reader have a source or potential source for this issue, please contact me at dj.garber@tds. net. We can make a copy at the USCA office and will return the reader’s copy promptly, or, pay for any reasonable costs a reader may incur for a high quality copy (11x17” page size). As previously recalled here, the publication’s


I


name was changed to the North American Curl- ing News in time for the December 1945 issue, then again to the United States Curling News in 1991. Tis magazine, under its three titles, is the oldest continuously published national curling publication in North America and possibly in the world. Te founder, Glenn Harris of Supe- rior, Wis., is a USCA Hall of Fame inductee. Articles in the National Curling News reveal


similarities and differences in the American curling culture in early 1945. Te editor apologized for the lateness of the


March 1, 1945, issue with a confession, “Te edi- tor went to a bonspiel.” Later in that issue, un- der bonspiel results (then titled “Te Winners”) the editor was named as the winner of Bemidji’s Paul Bunyan Bonspiel. “Te days of the ‘wooden block’ stone …


faded out many seasons ago … but as far as this reporter (Harris) was concerned, there just wasn’t anything but the finely-shaped, per- fectly balanced granite stones in use today … he has learned that up in the Quebec and Ot- tawa Valley district of Canada, they … hold to their ‘irons.’” Iron stones, “smaller in size, (are) considered by some players to make possible a more scientific game.” Your columnist once quipped that he wished he had a rock magnet


n its first season, in 1945, Glenn Harris’s publication was named National Curling News. Tis writer, more than 50 years


when his draw slid too deep. In view of today’s brush cloth controversy, imagine if iron stones had became the norm … Headline: “Scotland Having Finest Curl-


ing Season in Years.” A letter to Harris from Charles Wyllie, one of the makers of “Kay’s Ex- celsior” curling stones, reported that curling’s motherland was enjoying “the longest spell of curling weather for many years.” Tis before the common use of refrigerated ice. A list of curling clubs in the U.S. named 51


clubs, about a third of today’s total. Eleven of the 51 no longer exist: Winchester CC, Mass.; St. Vincent and Winnebago CC’s, Minn.; Por- tal CC, N.D.; Endeavor CC, Wis.; Farmington and Hartford CC’s, Conn.; Mahopac (Lake Ma- hopac) and Saranac Lake clubs in New York; Skokie (Glencoe) and Indian Hill (Winnetka) clubs in Illinois. (Not sure if all clubs reported their existence to the paper.) Harris noted in his column Tis ‘N Tat,


“John H. Joy, secretary of the Winchester Curl- ing Club, bewails ‘hereabouts, every time any one mentions curling, it either starts to rain or snow.’ Although strictly a serious statement, for the Winchester gang do their curling outside, it did seem funny to us.” A headline atop an article by a “veteran of


the ice” announced “Many Curlers of Today Seem to Lack the Proper Respect for the Game’s Rules.” Tat was 1945. Curling legend Ken Watson of Winnipeg,


who popularized the slide delivery in the early 1930s, missed the 54-rink St. Paul International Bonspiel due to illness, but his brother, Grant, undeterred, led the rink to win the St. Paul International; meanwhile, Superior’s 64-rink Northwest ‘spiel was won by Buhl’s Ed Roberts (skip), future national champion Fran Kleffman (last rocks), Tom Simonson and Tom Anderson. About 300 curlers subscribed to the National


Curling News in 1945. Te editor estimated that number was about 10 percent of the 3,000 curl- ers nationwide. Today’s numbers are 20,500 curlers in approximately 170 clubs.


USA Curling (( 31 A future column or two this season will cel-


ebrate the 70th anniversary of the USCA Men’s Championship and the 40th of the USWCA/ USCA Women’s event. Q


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