The Red Deer Curling Centre is celebrating its 125th anniversary this weekend (Feb. 21-22) with a bonspiel and social at the Pidherney Centre.
The Curling Centre is the largest club in Alberta with over 900 members.
The first curling games in Red Deer were played on the ice of the Red Deer River. In 1898, matches were moved to a small outdoor rink on Morrison (52nd) Street.
In November 1902, the Red Deer Rink Co. Ltd. purchased six lots on which to build a covered skating and curling rink, but construction was not actually started until the fall of 1903.
The structure, built at an estimated cost of $3,000, provided a skating surface of 175 feet by 60 feet and space on the north side for two sheets of curling ice 175 feet by 36 feet.
In 1913, the local curlers decided that the old rink had become inadequate. The Curling Club then formed a joint-stock company, sold $4,000 in shares and built a large extension onto the existing rink. This was the building which served Red Deer’s curlers for the next forty years.
On January 28, 1954, the current 8-sheet facility officially opened, with an 86-year-old club veteran delivering the first rock.
In 2012, the Red Deer Curling Centre expanded the number of sheets from eight to twelve.
The Pidherbey Centre is the largest curling facility in Alberta with twelve sheets of ice.
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