Sunday at the Whitehorse Curling Club was a day for the youth. The young curlers spent the day on the sheets for the 2019 Suzanne Bertrand Memorial Junior Bonspiel.

The bonspiel has been running for at least 15 years, all in partnership with McDonalds, and organizer Wade Kopan spoke to Bertrand’s importance to the young curlers at the club.

“I learned a lot from her when she was around,” said Kopan. “She was a teacher and you could tell when she was instructing curling with the kids that she had that teacher’s voice. We all learned a lot as a result of that."

Participating in the bonspiel was the Whitehorse Curling Club junior program and had 24 athletes, kids as young as five and up to 16. It was the perfect number of curlers, said Kopan, as the volunteers were able to organize the players into six teams of four.

“Some of those kids were intermingled as far as age groups were concerned,” said Kopan.

It’s not a competitive setting but it allows the curlers to learn the nuances of the game, how to keep score, being more strategic, and playing all the ends in a game setting.

Some of the older curlers in the junior program, said Kopan, were helpful in assisting the younger kids who aren’t as experienced.

“It’s really great to see,” said Kopan.

Kopan is one of the instructors of the junior curling program which runs Saturday mornings at the curling club. He said for some of the players this is their first time playing in a game format.

“For a lot of them yes,” said Kopan. “There are some that come from school programs so they have a rough idea of how it’s done. When they get into my setting it’s a little more structured, a little more strategy and all done in a game setting.

“We don’t have the time of the game like they would have at the competition level. It’s quite regular for a two-end game to take an hour.”

At the bonspiel, Kopan said he tries to blend trying to getting more ends in, while still trying to teach.

“There is a little bit of both in with that,” said Kopan. “I gauge where the kids’ experience, skill level that sort of thing is concerned. It’s just a better gauging at what the kids are feeling like at a certain time.”

The bonspiel is structured as two four-end games.

From the start of the curling season and leading into the bonspiel, Kopan said he has seen improvement in the kids’ play.

“Most definitely,” said Kopan. “The group of kids that we have now, we’ve got a really good bunch of kids. Meaning that they are really enthusiastic, they want to learn and they are willing to listen and it’s great.

“We’ve had some other groups in the past where we’ve had to repeat a few things, stuff like that, which is fine, we get that.

“This group seems to be an alignment of the stars. Everything seems to work out that we have kids that want to learn and are enthusiastic. That’s three quarters or my instruction so it’s let’s go play.”

Kopan said the kids brought that enthusiasm to the rink on Sunday.

“You see that input from the kids,” said Kopan. “There are seven-year-olds asking what should I do here? They are going through shot planning. They see it on TV, on Saturday morning and they’re putting everything together.

“Now they are in a bonspiel kind of situation and they are asking relevant questions on how the game is being played. It’s good to see that the instruction that we are providing, we are getting something back. It’s working out.”

Kopan said the Junior Bonspiel was helpful for the kids as it allowed them to take what they’ve been learning in their practices and piece it all together during a game.