Auckland Curling Club finally gets a dedicated rink

After 30 years of dreaming, Lorne DePape, founding member of the Auckland Curling Club, is finally seeing his wish become reality.

"The fact we've now got a dedicated curling rink here in Auckland, [it's] a quantum leap. It's a huge, huge breakthrough because we'll have hundreds and hundreds of young people coming in to curl."

His optimism is shared by others at the soft launch of Auckland's own curling rink on Saturday.

Over a celebratory barbecue, Auckland Curling Club president Rhys Greensill said not having their own space had been a "huge constraint" on their growth.

So far, they had to keep membership at around 100 members, but in his vision they will be able to grow it to 400 within the next two years.

To make the curling rink happen, the team spent nearly a year hunting for the right space.

"It's amazing how many warehouses are five metres too short."

The Penrose site was the twentieth they looked at and had previously been a printing factory.

Turning the empty warehouse into a curling rink was a team effort.

Sandra Thomas said with a limited budget, they had to be creative.

"This is about 600 square metres of carpet tiles, all recycled from a church in Hillsborough and laid by volunteers from the club. So we all learned how to tile.

"The furniture has all been sourced from auctions. The kitchen was built by my husband and my brother, we got a Trade Me kitchen for $75. I missed out on a commercial dishwasher that I really wanted so that was disappointing."

Thomas said a member helped them secured whiteware from Fisher & Paykel, but she's still on the lookout for a commercial dishwasher and an ice maker for the bar.

For years, the club has been practising on skating rinks with limited time slots and on ice that's not fit for curling, as DePape explained with his favorite analogy.

"The surface might be the same colour, but curling on a skating rink is figuratively, literally, like playing lawn bowls on a rugby field."

He said proper curling ice was made using a method called "pebbling the ice".

"It's warm water droplets that drop and lands on the ice and [form] a tiny dot, it doesn't splatter. So the stone is actually not running on the whole ice surface, it's just running on these frozen ball bearings. The amount of friction is hugely less than it is on a skating rink hence it is so much easier to get the stone down to the other end, and it curls properly."

Officially marking the launch day and testing the ice is 80-year-old Liz Matthews.

Appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to curling, Matthews first began playing in the 1950s when she spent seven years in Canada.

She lunged forward and smoothly threw the stone across the pristine ice as the crowd bursted in cheer.

She described what that was like.

"I knew I was going to have to throw really hard for it to properly curl, because I'd had a try a couple of days ago. The hacks are great, the ice is pretty good, but it's (the ice) just too raw at the moment."

Doug Charko is the ice technician. The retired meteorologist is not entirely comfortable with the title, he said he's still learning, and the ice needed some more fine tuning.

"Every building behaves differently with humidity, with temperature. There are nine layers of materials under the ice. It's not just a layer of frozen water."

As seasoned players gave the ice a try, Greensill said the game had plenty to offer to beginners.

"Here you're dealing with a team, you've got four people, you've got the person throwing the stone, you've got two sweepers who are affecting the path and the speed of the stone, and then you've got a skip down the other end who's trying to tell you where he wants that stone to finish up.

"It's incredibly dynamic, you're having to make split second decisions, it's just a hell lot of fun."

While for the last three decades curlers had to practice on ice that's not ideal, they kept coming back.

"They call it the game chess on ice, and it really is," Greensill said.

Ken, who's been curling for nine years, stayed for the fun and community.

"It's inclusive. You can play with all sorts of genders and ages and experiences."

So, if launching yourself and a stone along the ice enthusiastically sounds like you, and you're in the hunt for a sport for your next Winter Olympics game, Greensill said not much was needed to make a start. Flat shoes, something warm, and flexible trousers will keep you comfortable.

Everything else, like the 20kg curling stone, and the brooms, will be supplied by the rink, he said.

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