Edmonton hosting visually impaired curling championship for first time

Some of the best blind curlers in Canada are in Edmonton this week for the Canadian Vision Impaired Curling Championship.

For the first time ever, the Canadian Visually Impaired Curling Championship is being held in Edmonton this week.

Forty visually impaired curlers from seven provinces are participating in the competition, hosted by the Edmonton Blind Curling Club at the Granite Curling Club.

“We’ve got a pretty good shot at this,” said Natalie Morin, skip for Team Alberta and president of the local blind curling club.

“We curl together every week. A couple of us curl together in a regular sighted mixed league, so we use that for additional practice.”

In blind curling, the lead is totally blind, while their three teammates have varying degrees of vision loss. They use aids like lights or audio cues to throw their rock. The sweeper can be fully sighted.

“A lot of times, the visually impaired curler might have difficulty seeing the other end of the ice, so what we need to do is bring the broom a little bit closer. And rather than aim at a broom, they might aim at a light or they might have an audio cue – somebody might tap the ice for them to release the rock in a certain position. So whatever the curler requires – and it fluctuates, as does the vision level fluctuate between the curlers,” explained event coordinator Corry Stuive.

For most of the competition’s 18 years, it has been held in Ottawa where sponsor Canadian Council of the Blind is located. Last year Nova Scotia hosted.

“We’re looking forward to doing an east-west thing and taking the event to many cities to help promote within that local market and maybe get more people involved in the sport itself,” Stuive said.

“I would encourage anyone that may have vision loss, rather than giving up on the sport, come out. We’ll work with you,” he added.

Eventually, he hopes the sport becomes part of the Paralympics.

The competition runs until Friday.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Sean McClune