The latest fad in winter fun has come to Manitou Beach.

Jamie Regier, the curling ice technician at the Watrous Curling Club, has installed a crokicurl rink near Danceland in time for Winterfest at the request of the community’s recreation committee.

“It’s good to see people out there trying it,” Regier told Bolt FM.

“Basically it’s just like curling so you’ve got new people who have never curled before, they’re out there trying it. So it’s good for all that hard work for people to come out and give it a whirl and see what the game is all about.”

Crokicurl is a game of crokinole played on curling ice. Where a normal curling rink is 150 feet long by 14 feet wide with a 12-foot house, the Manitou Beach crokicurl rink is 50 feet wide with a 36-foot house and pegs made of rebar covered by pool noodles.

Regier discovered that real curling rocks chipped the hole at the centre of the ice when they fell in, so he fashioned rocks made of six layers of plywood instead.

Cold outdoor weather made the project more challenging than working in a rink when it came to painting the ice, but he said he’s happy with their first effort.

“It was a bit colder outside but we wanted to make it look like an actual curling house and paint it to look perfect.”

The rink is open to the public, and the community’s Winterfest is set for March 17.

crokicurl rock