The Winkler Curling Club ice was broken in this weekend at the Quality Inn Winkler Junior Curling Classic.

Rhonda Kezema and her husband have been the Winkler Junior Curling Coordinators for five years, and she says "the rink ice here in town was just finished and good to go this past week, so our bonspiel was just kind of the season opener."

12 male and 12 female teams took part in the bonspiel, and in July, teams were already being added to a waitlist.

"It's an all age type sport too, and it's so good we have young people out there, and our youth can see what's going on and how active our clubs are," says Kezema. She says the under 21 program also has almost 110 kids.

The bonspiel gives young curlers a chance to compete against curlers from all over the province.

She adds, "we've had people not only from southern Manitoba but also from Winkler and a bit north of Winnipeg... [and] in previous years we've had people down from the states and also into Saskatchewan."

Kezema says the wide geographic range of teams is probably due to smaller clubs looking for a larger competition, and a wider variety of people to play against. Although people travelled from all over the area, there were still some familiar faces on the winning teams of the weekend.

Team Meghan Walter won in the ladies division. Morgan Reimer is one of their team members and hails from Morden.

In the men's division, Team Josh Friesen won. Their skip, Josh Friesen, is from Manitou.