Curling is reported in Niagara Falls as early as 1887 but a curling club was not established until 1891, when the Niagara Falls Curling and Skating Association was founded. This is now the Niagara Falls Curling Club.
Sandra Schmirler of Regina, Saskatchewan, led her rink to three national championships at the Scotties, followed by three world championships. She and her rink also won the first Olympic Gold medal for women’s curling in 1998 at Nagano.
To get to the Olympics, Schmirler had to win the Canadian Olympic qualifier in 1997. She did it with a remarkable “in-off for three” shot.
Schmirler died tragically young of cancer, at age 36 in 2000.
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An amazing shot! And such a tragic loss, she was so young.
A few years back when I brought my family vacationed at Niagara Falls, a restaurant server was telling us of her teenaged son’s curling at NFCC. We visited NFCC and they had an intro package. We all went curling for an afternoon. Maintaining balance was tricky. It was quite educational and fun! It made for lasting family vacation memories.
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Still in play:
Curling’s nickname is “The Roaring Game”. This is from the rumbling sound the 44-pound (19.96kg) granite stones make when they travel across the ice.
Brad Gushue’s curling team were not the only Newfoundlanders to win a medal at the 2006 Olympics. Silver medal winner Tanith Belbin (for pairs ice dancing) is the daughter of Newfoundland-raised parents – her mother was a pro figure skater in St. John’s.
Tanith Lee (1947 – 2015) was a British writer of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. She was the author of over 90 novels and 300 short stories, a children’s picture book (Animal Castle), and many poems. She also wrote two episodes of the BBC science fiction series Blake’s 7. She was the first woman to win the British Fantasy Award best novel award (also known as the August Derleth Award), for her book Death’s Master.
Robert Alfonso Taft of Ohio has been voted one of the greatest U.S. Senators ever. His fight against Roosevelt’s New Deal had little success, but in 1947 he was able to override Truman’s veto of the Taft–Hartley Labor Act. (Truman actually ended up applying the Act 12 times, perhaps more than any other President!)
NM – ninja’d
In 1919, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council struck down the first federal labor relations act, passed by the Canadian Parliament, as ultra vires.
As a result of that decision, and the principle of exclusive jurisdiction, labour relations in Canada are primarily under provincial jurisdiction. It’s estimated that only 10% of Canadian workplaces fall under federal jurisdiction
There have been seven Heisman Troplhy winners who played in the Canadian Football League. (There – football and Canada, now everybody’s happy.)
The Vince Lombardi Trophy is the trophy awarded each year to the winning team of the National Football League’s championship game, the Super Bowl. The trophy is named in honor of NFL coach Vince Lombardi. It was officially renamed in 1970 in memory of NFL head coach Vince Lombardi, after his death from cancer, to commemorate his leading the Green Bay Packers to victories in the first two Super Bowls.[
The CFL’s championship, the Grey Cup, dates to 1909, to a game played in December in Toronto.
The 101st Grey Cup was played in Regina on a balmy +10’C day in late November, 2013. The hometown Saskatchewan Roughriders, playing in the last Grey Cup that will be played on the venerable Taylor Field, beat the Hamilton Ti-Cats, 45-23.
Sir William Rowan Hamilton, an 18th century Irish Mathematician/Astronomer/Physicist, has had at least 20 different scientific and mathematical terms named after him.
The rowan tree, or mountain ash, has always had mystical properties in Scottish Celtic myths.
Rowan Oak is a large 1840s Greek Revival house was purchased by William Faulkner during the 1930s. He accepted Hollywood work in large part to pay for the renovation of the house, A process he completed with this Nobel prize money. The home is now owned and maintained by the University of Mississippi.
Prof. James D. Rowan of Wesleyan College in Georgia has what is, I think, the most memorable faculty page in all of U.S. academic history: http://pierce.wesleyancollege.edu/faculty/jrowan/
1066 and All That : A Memorable History of England, comprising all the parts you can remember, including 103 Good Things, 5 Bad Kings and 2 Genuine Dates includes two memorable dates. The original draft was to contain four dates, but two of them were dropped when further research determined that they were not memorable.
A portion of the Bayeux Tapestry shows Halley’s Comet during its appearance in 1066.
Mark Twain was born and died in consecutive years of the appearance of Halley’s Comet.
On the Mississippi River in the 1850s, the leadsmen, while checking the depth of the river, used old-fashioned words for some of the numbers; for example instead of “two” they would say “twain”. Thus when the depth was two fathoms, they would call “by the mark twain!”.