City will not convert ice pad for summer curling in Windsor due to lack of interest

A curling rock is seen in this file image. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward)

City council approved an administration recommendation Monday against converting one of the ice pads to allow curling during the spring and summer due to a lack of interest.

On April 28, 2025, a fire at the WFCU Centre resulted in the AM800 community rink being closed, forcing the city to reevaluate the overall ice time schedule to accommodate as many user groups as possible.

During its June 9, 2025, meeting, the council directed administration to convert Rink A at Capri Pizzeria Recreation Complex from a curling sheet to a skating ice pad to accommodate user groups displaced by the fire and to offer a spring-summer season for curling to begin in April 2026.

According to a city report, curling registration was opened in mid-March, but only four people signed up.

Terry Fink, chair of the Future of Curling in Windsor, says every sport has its season.

“There’s always excitement in curling, as there is in every other sport when the season starts and when everybody is full of enthusiasm and they want to have a good season,” he says. “Everything that a sport delivers to an individual. Then the season ends and it concludes, then the curlers, like baseball players and everybody else, move on to another sport.”

Fink says they’re not surprised it didn’t work out.

“The curlers are moving to golf, gardening, walking and enjoying the good weather,” he says.

Fink they do look forward to the curling season this coming fall.

“We were in consultation with the city staff about it, and we expressed our reluctancy about it; however, in good faith, they decided to try it. I think they gave it a good try, but the sport of curling is not done in April, May, and June,” he says.

If the city were to keep one ice pad operational for an additional 11 weeks beyond the standard seven-week spring season, it would result in a projected deficit of $112,155 given the lack of registrations.

The ice will now be removed, and the space will be repurposed for summer camp programming, which, on average, accommodates approximately 120 participants per week per ice pad.