For a lot of curlers in Canada, the goal is to reach the Brier or Tournament of Hearts, the respective men's and women's national championships of the sport.
But you have to start somewhere and for dozens of young curlers from Hay River, Yellowknife and Inuvik, they were doing just that in Yellowknife this past weekend.
Curling NT's Rock The Rings youth bonspiel wrapped up in the capital on Sunday and the Hub's contribution to the cause was a dozen young curlers all playing in the U12 division. They were among more than 60 youth on the ice over the course of the three-day event which featured modified games for the younger ones and full games for the older players.
Team Gobeil managed to get to the final of the U12 division, but ended up losing to Team Bain out of Inuvik by a score of 3-0, while Team Monkman ended up on the wrong end of the result in the fifth-place game, losing 6-0 to Team Rommel out of Yellowknife.
Co-coach Ashley Squires-Rowe said the goal for the weekend was to simply have fun.
"We have a lot of new curlers this year, so we wanted them to enjoy themselves," she said. "All of our younger curlers right now are U12s."
Co-coach Amanda Roach noted that Team Gobeil consisted of players who were between the ages of seven through nine and that was great to see.
"Most of our curlers are in Grades 2 and 3 for the most part," she said.
The U12 division was modified a bit from a regular game in that only six rocks per end were thrown instead of the traditional eight and all of the games were just four ends in length.
Shelby Coakwell, who played with Team Monkman, is one of those first-year curlers and said it was a good weekend.
One thing Coakwell noticed, though, was how much different the ice was in Yellowknife than it is back home.
"It's a lot bumpier," she said, referring to the amount of pebble on the sheets. "We won two out of five games, so that's good."
While curling was the name of the game, there were other things to do when the players weren't busy on the ice. There was bowling to be had, as well as swimming, and the older players had an evening for themselves with the theme being Minute To Win It. There was even a table tennis set-up courtesy of Table Tennis North in the club room for players to let off some steam in between or after games.
Janie Hobart, Curling NT's interim executive director, said this is the fifth year Rock The Rings has happened and it seems to have taken hold.
"We're definitely looking at going higher in terms of numbers for next year," she said. "Lots of smiles and the parents were very happy. Everyone was active and had a great time."
One thing Hobart pointed out was the popularity of the mixed doubles event, which had 15 teams entered. That's a considerable rise from the four teams one year ago.
"That's a good sign because mixed doubles is now an official event at the Arctic Winter Games and Canada Winter Games," she said. "We want to make sure our athletes are prepared to compete at those multi-sport games."
