'Disheartening': Curler reacts to Windsor possibly sweeping sport aside next season

Megan Brian says she's kept her curling broom ready in her front closet for years before finally getting back into the sport this past season.

The 28-year-old nurse from Windsor played in high school for one year and picked her broom back up last year, joining a league at the Capri Pizzeria Recreation Complex.

"I decided to jump back into curling … [and] kind of get back into things that really spark joy for me," Brian said. 

"Curling was one of those and I had such a welcoming experience with the group [at Capri], they were really, really kind to me joining."

The recent news that curling could be in jeopardy next year, just a year after she'd gotten involved again, was "disheartening," she added.

The short-term fate of the sport in the city is once again up in the air.

A new city report headed to council next Monday outlines a recommendation that would see the curling ice at the Capri Pizzeria Recreation Complex reconverted to ice skating — leaving local curlers temporarily out of luck for the next season.

This after just last year curling was forced to move from Roseland Golf Course grounds — so the clubhouse and curling could be demolished — into the twin-pad south Windsor arena. That move lowered the city's public skating rinks from nine to eight.

"I am already really looking forward to the next season … There's very limited places in Windsor-Essex County that we can do curling at," she said, citing distance and cost as two factors that limit availability.

"I know for sure that I'm going to wait it out ... But I was really looking forward to our 2025 winter season and I feel like a lot of people can relate to this. Seasonal depression is very real and having something to look forward to in a social sense in the winter time is really important for a lot of people."

Ice schedulers across the border city have now been thrown for another loop following the loss of one rink at the WFCU Centre. City officials believe it will take at least 10 months to repair the AM800 pad after hundreds of solar panels were destroyed in a rooftop fire on federal election day, April 28.

"It is unsafe to allow anyone on the damaged area, and it has been deemed unsafe to allow the public to walk beneath," the report states.

The city report also outlines water damage in the insulation above the rinks while other mechanical systems are still being investigated. 

Michael Chantler, the city's commissioner of community services, calls the situation "completely unfortunate," and "devastating" to their programming.

"There's no perfect scenario where we can satisfy everyone," he told CBC News. "It puts us in a very difficult position as administration and we're just going to try and do what we can do best for most people in the community."

The city says it would cost $10,000 to change the curling ice back to regular skating ice at Capri. The move would put curling on pause, temporarily, until the 2026-2027 season.

The main tenant of the AM800 rink is the Riverside Minor Hockey Association (RMHA), which serves more than 600 young people and uses about 53 hours of ice each week on the pad — across all rinks at the WFCU it's more like 80 hours and $441,000 of revenue for the city, according to association president Anne Marie Schofield.

"It makes clear and logical sense from a disaster recovery perspective," she said, as it relates to getting the bulk of affected users back up and running to maintain their business.

According to Schofield, curlers have every right to be upset but that is a short-term thing.

"This is one season, hopefully. No one wants to remove curling completely. We adapted to that change a year ago and we'll adapt again," she said. "We're looking for them to adapt now to this."

Municipal staff said in the report that curling books around 14 hours of ice each week at the current Capri arena complex and generated around $155,000 during the 2024-2025.

Chantler says the revenue generated by the skating groups versus curling was a factor in their decision with such a "decent disparity" between the two.

"This caught us obviously completely by surprise. You can't plan for a fire," he said.

Schofield said keeping her hockey association and Riverside's skating club at "home" during any ice adjustment was critical for them.

"Moving programming outside of the Riverside community is impactful on our families. They choose Riverside minor hockey or Riverside figure skating because it's close to their homes."