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Caledonian Curling Club
The Caledonian Curling Club, also known as the Callie, is a curling club located in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Established in 1915, the club is among the oldest in the province and has been the home of many championship teams, including the Sandra Schmirler rink, which won three provincial, national, and world championships in the 1990s and the gold medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics. The Callie merged with the Tartan Curling Club in 2018, leaving it as one of two clubs in Regina, alongside the Highland Curling Club. HistoryOn 7 October 1915, curlers gathered in Slater and Finlayson's store to discuss prospects for the formation of a second curling club in Regina; it was agreed that a second club would prove beneficial to the interests of curling in the city, and that the additional rink would provide better accommodation for the provincial bonspiel. The club was officially established on 14 October 1915, when it was christened the Caledonian Curling Club of Regina. C. J. Watson, who had chaired the meetings, was named the first president of the club.[citation needed] The club was originally situated on the Regina Fair Grounds, moving between various buildings before settling in the Grain Show Building by 1933. In November 1978, the club moved to its current location next to the Regina International Airport.[1] In 2015, the club marked its 100th anniversary with a multi-day 100-end curling match.[2] In 2018, the Callie absorbed the former Tartan Curling Club when it closed.[3] In 2023, the Callie began hosting the Queen City Curling League, the province's second LGBT curling league after the Prairie Lily Curling League was established at Saskatoon's Nutana Curling Club in 2014.[4][5] ChampionsThe Callie is noted for being the home of Sandra Schmirler's world championship team.[1] Schmirler, along with third Jan Betker, second Joan McCusker, and lead Marcia Gudereit, won three national and World Championships in the 1990s before winning the first Olympic gold medal in women's curling in 1998. In 2019, the team was voted first in a national ranking of the best ever women's curling teams.[6] After Schmirler died in 2000, Betker skipped two more provincial championship teams. Long before the Schmirler team's success, the Callie produced the first women's team to win an inter-provincial competition when Janet Perkin's rink won the 1953 Western Canadian Ladies' Championship, which was hosted in Regina.[7] In 1980, Marj Mitchell's team won Canada's first Women's World Championship in the second ever edition of the event in Perth, Scotland.[8] In 1990, the Atina Ford rink won the Canadian Junior Championship, while Nancy Kerr's team won the 2003 Canadian and World Seniors titles.[9] Overall, the Callie has been the home of fifteen women's provincial champions. On the men's side, the Callie has been home to four Canadian Junior Champions, as well as the 2005 World Junior Champion Kyle George rink.[10] In 1998, Gary Bryden's rink won the Canadian Senior Championship.[11] Altogether, Caledonian rinks have claimed six men's provincial championships. The club also secured a Canadian Mixed Curling title in 1996, with Randy Bryden's rink, featuring brother Russ and sisters Cathy Trowell (Inglis) and Karen Inglis, winning the championship.[12]
Tartan Curling Club merger
In 2018, the Callie absorbed the former Tartan Curling Club, which closed the doors at its Broadway Avenue location after 60 years of operating there.[3][14] At the time of the closure, the two clubs proposed a merger to help stabilize curling in the city.[15] The Tartan was founded in 1948 as the Civil Service Curling Club, which later merged with the Community Co-operative Curling Association and changed its name to the Tartan. The club opened a ten-sheet artificial ice rink in 1958. In 2003, the Tartan absorbed the Wheat City Curling Club upon its closure.[16] The Tartan itself was the home of a number of provincial championship rinks, including Randy Woytowich's mixed rink that went undefeated en route to the 1984 Canadian Mixed Curling Championship.[17]
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