'Crokicurl' may be 'most Canadian' game ever

CTV News Channel: 'Crokicurl' makes its debut Liz Wreford of Public City Architecture explains how the idea to combine curling with crokinole was dreamed up in Winnipeg.

Manitobans are playing a new game that combines the rules of the wooden board game ‘crokinole’ with curling rocks and an ice rink.

Landscape architect Liz Wreford, whose firm Public City Architecture up with the new game ‘crokicurl,’ told CTV News Channel she believes it may be “the most Canadian thing ever.”

Wreford said she and her teammates were playing crokinole -- a Canadian board game where the object is to get one’s wooden chips to the centre of the board by knocking others’ out of the way -- when it occurred to them how similar it was to curling.

An internet search suggested no one had ever tried doing it on ice, so they decided to design a version at The Forks plaza in downtown Winnipeg.

“The rules are very similar to crokinole,” Wreford said. “The object is to knock your opponents rocks out of the way and get as many into the middle of the rink as possible.”

The ice version of the crokinole board does not require brooms, unlike curling.

Wreford said the game has been very popular and she’s fielding enquires from across Canada.

Wreford’s not surprised. “Everyone gets a warm fuzzy feeling when they think about crokinole,” she said.