Families took to the pebbled ice at the Whitehorse Curling Club to take part in the 6th Annual Henning Hansen Family Funspiel on Sunday.

Wade Kopan and Jim Sias have organized the spiel since it’s founding six years ago, to honour their friend Henning Hansen.

“Henning Hansen was a long time volunteer with the curling club,” said Kopan. “He’s done a lot for family oriented type activities at the club as well. We do this in his memory and to keep the family thing going on. It’s been a labour of love.”

Adults and kids spread across the rinks as 10 teams participated in the day’s funspiel. Sias said they started the Family Funspiel to keep their kids involved in the game.

“We started the family bonspiel to keep our kids involved and get some of their parents out to have some fun and involve some parents that don’t curl,” said Sias. “ We have had good turnouts for the six years and it’s all fun.”

The rules stipulated that at least one member of the team had to be under the age of 15, so many of the young curlers in the event are part of the junior curling program at the club.

“We get fairly good numbers and the kids really enjoy themselves and the parents really enjoy themselves,” said Kopan. “We encourage those parents that bring the kids to the junior program, we encourage those parents to come out and have some fun, sweep some rocks and have some exercise and stuff like that. And they get to yell at each other which always seems to be oddly fun for the kids and the parents themselves.”

The funspiel also allowed for some role reversal as the kids got to teach the parents a thing or two.

“That happens a lot out there,” said Sias about the kids teaching the parents how to curl. “The kids are saying ‘this is how you do this and this is how you do that’ it’s pretty cool to see what they have learned and put it into practice. The funspiel also gets some of the parents interested in curling.”

Scores were kept during the games but it was just a way to get the kids and the parents new to curling to practice all facets of the game.

“They keep score during the game but we don’t use that for standings or prizes after the game,” said Kopen.

“It’s part of learning how to keep score and learning how to use the scoreboard,” said Sias. “At the end, everyone gets a prize and everyone is happy.”

Kopen says without the volunteers at the club events like the Family Funspiel would be really difficult to hold.

“We had a really good support group, a good volunteer base we have been working here with,” said Kopan. “Without the volunteer base in the club, in general, it would be really difficult to put these programs on and these events on.”

In other curling news, Team Yukon is preparing to head to Prince Albert, Sask., for the 2019 New Holland Canadian Junior Men’s and Women’s Curling Championships.

Representing the Yukon will be skip Trygg Jensen, third William Klassen, second Alexander Kopan and lead Alexander Schultz. They will also be joined by their coach Joseph Wallingham.

The Yukon does not have a women’s team headed to Prince Albert.

The Canadian Under-21 Championships kick off Saturday at the Art Hauser Centre and the Prince Albert Golf and Curling Club.