It may be the curling off-season but that has not stopped the North Bay Granite Club from being a very busy place this summer.
From Summer bonspiels to a roller derby venue, officials at the curling facility are maximizing the use of the facility in the off-season and that is good news for sports tourism in the city.
Bobby Ray is the General Manager of this diverse facility. He says the shift away from an exclusive volunteer facility has allowed operators to market the building in a way that they have never done before.
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“So now that we have people that can work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year they have got the time to seek out these new opportunities,” said Ray.
Ray says the diversity goes beyond the indoor facility. At the nearby tennis courts behind the Granite Club, they are looking for Trillium funding in hopes of creating permanent pickleball courts outside.
And outdoors things are going well too.
“Our tennis court facilities, we have about 250 members there,” said Ray.
“We have a doubles league that is maxed out at 48 teams on Wednesday nights so the summer usage of our facility is extremely bigger than it has been in the past.”
Of course, Ray says their main focus is still all about curling and they are hoping to pick up some of the momentum created during March’s successful World Women’s Curling Championships. There was an indication of that as the Summer Spiel which traditionally hosts 14 to 32 teams, maxed out at 48 earlier this summer at the Granite Club.
“We spent a lot of time building up the tennis, building up wedding rentals, building up alternative sources of revenue and now we really want to focus on growing membership because that is going to be key to being sustainable for the long-term,” said Ray.
“So with the world championship concluded in the spring we are very hopeful we can bring in more members this fall to teach them curling, that is going to be a huge emphasis.”
Ray feels one way to take curling to the next level is the possibility of adding a curling professional to the Granite Club staff.
“Golf clubs have golf pros, tennis clubs have tennis pros, why don’t curling clubs have curling pros? That is a question our board is throwing around and I think you will see that be fulfilled soon,” said Ray.
