By Jordan Mady
Two students are beginning the process of submitting an application for a men’s curling club on campus.
“After I accepted my offer, I emailed [Ryerson Athletics],” said second-year urban planning student Stuart Leslie.
On Sept. 8, Leslie and his roommate Alex Champ met with Ryerson Athletics club coordinator Nick Asquini to begin the process of establishing the club on campus.
“We’re glad we got somewhere with it,” said Champ.
Leslie and Champ have curled since they were kids and presently curl competitively on the Ontario Junior Curling Tour.
The idea for a school team surfaced when they were curling at Leaside Curling Club, a 30-minute subway ride from Dundas Station. Some fellow curlers from the University of Toronto, which has an Ontario University Athletics (OUA) curling squad, asked about Ryerson.
“They asked ‘why doesn’t Ryerson have a club?’,” said Leslie. “It was a natural question.”
The prospective university curlers are aiming for the club to join the 14 other schools already running men’s curling programs in the OUA.
Leslie and Champ are aware of the path they need to take in order to get an official team. They must submit a club application to Ryerson Athletics by January followed by an acceptance into the OUA shortly thereafter.
“We haven’t received an application yet,” said Asquini. “Right now it’s preliminary discussion.”
Even in the best of scenarios, they wouldn’t be instated into the OUA circuit until fall 2015 at the earliest. The team would play out of the Leaside Club, not on campus.
While the wait continues, Leslie is excited that they’ve made progress. And he hopes one day to compete with the other teams in the OUA.
“It would be nice to represent the school too,” he said.
Leave a Reply