Pembroke Curling Club celebrates 150th anniversary

The Pembroke Curling Club celebrated a landmark milestone Saturday, marking 150 years of existence in Pembroke, Ont.

The club was founded in 1872, making it the third oldest curling club in North America, but curling in Pembroke started even before then.

"I think they started in 1870 playing on the Ottawa River," says Emile Robert, chair of the club's 150th anniversary celebration.

The former club present says that the current ice pad on Herbert Street wasn't always the original home.

"The club burned down in January of 1968," Robert tells CTV News Ottawa. "Then this place was up and running in the fall."

It was a full house at the Pembroke Curling Centre Saturday, as the club opened its doors to celebrate their history and current members, but also welcome interested members the chance to try out the sport for themselves.

"Curling is that kind of game where you can be anywhere from 6-years-old to our oldest member is 93 years old," current club president Bill Cheliak says.

One of those prospective new members is young Dustin Fowler.

"Dustin has been obsessed with curling since watching it at the Olympics," his mother Kathy Fowler tells CTV News. "And he really wanted to come out and try and this was a perfect opportunity."

"I'd really like to learn it and I think I'm probably going to play a lot more," says an eager Dustin. "I just really like throwing the rocks and trying get them right in the middle."

Joanne O'Connor has been a member of the Pembroke Curling Club for 15 years now, and has been curling for just as long. She says she had to be persuaded to come out the first time, but has come voluntarily ever since.

"The social is great, meeting new people," O'Connor says. "But it's great exercise, it's 150 feet so you're walking up and down it and then you're sweeping on top of that so you're exerting a good amount of energy."

Despite holding the moniker "Hockey Town Canada", there is something about curling in Pembroke that has allowed the sport grow over 150 years.

"It was important to us that people recognize that Pembroke, even though it's away from Ottawa, is a viable curling club and it's been here for 150 years," says Robert.

"I think starting in October we'll probably sign up," Kathy Fowler says. "And as adults we'll be here anyways, we might as well do it."