In the season 4 premier of ‘Yes, We Are Open’ Al heads east to New Brunswick. His first stop is the Sackville Curling Club. At 128 years old, it’s the oldest business Al has featured on the podcast—by a lot—but that doesn’t mean they’re impervious to struggle. With lockdowns and severe capacity restrictions, the pandemic posed the club’s greatest threat in literally a century! How did they survive? Listen to find out. You can learn more about Sackville Curling Club at sackvillecurlingclub.com.
In the season 4 premier of ‘Yes, We Are Open’ Al heads east to New Brunswick. His first stop is the Sackville Curling Club.
At 128 years old, it’s the oldest business Al has featured on the podcast—by a lot—but that doesn’t mean they’re impervious to struggle. With lockdowns and severe capacity restrictions, the pandemic posed the club’s greatest threat in literally a century!
How did they survive?
Listen to find out.
You can learn more about Sackville Curling Club at sackvillecurlingclub.com.
Al Grego:
Spring, my favorite season. A season of new beginnings, new hope, moderate temperatures, and no mosquitoes, at least not yet anyway. And speaking of seasons, and oh, I know that was a horrible segue, bear with me here, the first two seasons of this podcast, I went west to Saskatoon and Vancouver. Last season I stayed in Ontario. So, in an effort to better represent this country, this season I thought I'd go east.
Right now, I'm on a flight to New Brunswick. Unlike Saskatoon and Vancouver, I've actually been to New Brunswick. Well, that's not quite true. I've driven through there en route to Halifax one summer with my wife back in '99. That was back before GPS or smartphones. It was a proper road trip, with the folding maps, car loaded with bags, snacks, and CDs for when we were between local top 40 radio stations. I don't expect to remember any of it, but I'm still looking forward to visiting some of those places I just drove through all those years ago.
If you're a new listener to this podcast, thank you for giving it a go. I hope you find it as inspiring as I've found it for the last three seasons. If you're a returning listener, welcome back. I've got eight new Canadian businesses and eight new stories of struggle, perseverance, and triumph. Hello everyone. I'm Al Grego, and this is the season four premiere of the 'Yes, We Are Open' podcast.
My first stop on my Eastern Canada tour is Sackville, New Brunswick, about a half hour southeast of Moncton and minutes from Nova Scotia. Established in 1762 and with a population of approximately 6,000 people, Sackville is a small community, but made vibrant by its most notable institution, Mount Allison University. Mount Allison is a primarily undergraduate liberal arts university, which adds approximately 2,300 students to the town during the school year, ballooning Sackville's population by almost 40%. Because of this, Sackville can seem more cosmopolitan than many other towns of a similar size.
Sackville was originally settled on agriculture, shipbuilding and manufacturing, but today, Sackville's economy is driven by the university and tourism. The main employers in town are, full disclosure, Moneris, Russell Metals, Sackville Memorial Hospital, and of course, the university. Overall, Sackville offers a unique blend of history, culture, and natural beauty, making it a popular destination for tourists and a great place to live, for those who enjoy a small town lifestyle. Their picturesque downtown offers cozy B&Bs, dozens of diverse restaurants, boutique stores, and family businesses. Now, you might think I'm here to visit one of those family businesses, but actually I'm visiting one of Sackville's oldest institutions and the subject of this week's story, Sackville Curling Club.
I enter the building and get buzzed in. Once inside, I walk down a hallway with offices and locker rooms on either side. At the end of the hallway, there's a staircase. I go up some stairs, to a landing leading to the curling sheets, then a left up a few more steps into the clubhouse. It's a warm, inviting clubhouse with wood paneled walls, tables, and lots of seating. On the far end, there's a bar and a kitchen that's shared between the clubhouse and an adjoining hall, large enough to host small events. The clubhouse would look like any other pub, if it weren't for all the hanging curling banners, trophies, and of course, along an entire wall of the clubhouse are windows overlooking the three curling sheets belonging to the Sackville Curling Club.
Looking for Al.
Allan Smith:
Yes, I'm Allan.
Al Grego:
Nice to meet you. Allan. I'm Allan. Even spelled the same as yours.
That's Allan, a longtime member and historian of the club. Allan literally wrote the book on the history of the club, making him the perfect candidate for my microphone. Allan leads me into the adjoining hall for some privacy, and we sit at a table for our interview.
Allan Smith:
Name is Allan Smith. I am a member here at the Sackville Curling Club. Have been so since 1977 as a active curling member, former president of the club back in 1982-83.
Al Grego:
What year was the Sacramento Curling Club founded?
Allan Smith:
Well, we go back, we just celebrated our 125th anniversary two years ago. So we go back to 1895, when the first club was organized, and in that first year there were 16 founding members and they limited entry to 32 curlers, and they curled on a skating rink. They didn't have a dedicated curling club, so they had to share the rink with skaters and hockey players, et cetera, et cetera.
Al Grego:
The reason you're talking to me is because you're kind of a historian for this Curling Club. You even wrote the history book on the Sackville Curling Club?
Allan Smith:
Yes, that's correct.
Al Grego:
So, could you tell me back in 1895 when the Curling club was first established, a little bit about Sackville, what was it back then?
Allan Smith:
Oh, it was much smaller. Very, I think the population back then would've been around a thousand, and at that time, the founding fathers were kind of, the university in Sackville elite.
Dr. James Palmer was the one that led the church, and he was the president of the Mount Allison Academy, here on campus. So, he called together some of his buddies, and in the beginning it was a bit of an old boys club, and it stayed that way for quite some time. And then the following year, there was a dedicated curling club built for the club, and then that lasted only a few years. They had problems with the water supply because it was from a well, and there was salt content in the well. So, the ice didn't freeze very well. So, then they ended up forming their own curling rink company and building another brand new club that they owned themselves, rather than rent, down on Main Street. So, the one we're in now is actually the third curling club.
Al Grego:
What would you say would be Sackville curling club's, kind of payday, like the air, the boom era of this club?
Allan Smith:
Yeah, it would definitely be in the 1980s, through to about 1991, which was our peak in membership, a huge, mixed, curling section. We had mixed curling on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, and our membership at the time was just under 400. So, that was certainly the peak of membership and the peak of activity.
Well, as I mentioned earlier, it started out as an old boys club, and the first entry of female curlers was briefly in 1910, and only lasted for a brief time. And then it didn't reappear until this club opened in, built in 1949, opened in 1950, and the ladies formed their own curling club and used the facility here, which is owned and controlled by the men, and there's been women's curling ever since.
But then in 1979, the female section or their own curling club amalgamated. And so, now it's one overall amalgamated club. Majority of our presidents over the last 20 years have been female, so it certainly has worked out on the positive side.
Al Grego:
Yeah, for sure.
Tom Truman:
Hi, my name is Tom Truman. I'm the president of the Board of Directors of the Sackville Curling Club.
Al Grego:
Tom, when did you become a member of the Sackville Curling Club?
Tom Truman:
2012, maybe? 10 or 12 years ago.
Al Grego:
12 years ago. And before that, were you a curler at all or is this something you...?
Tom Truman:
No, that was my first venture in the curling.
Al Grego:
Wow. So, you liked it so much, you became the president.
Tom Truman:
I think when they asked for volunteers, everybody else took a step back.
Al Grego:
What do you do now? Are you still working? Are you retired?
Tom Truman:
Oh, I run a farm, so I work all the time.
Al Grego:
Very good. What was it about curling that drew you?
Tom Truman:
It was just a sport that, as a kind of an older fat guy, it was easy to get into, and social, and you didn't have to have a lot of skill. And not that, you needed to do well, but you don't necessarily need it to start. So, it was a good local club, so seemed to be something that was of interest.
Al Grego:
Now, you say you joined the club in '73, was it?
Allan Smith:
'77?
Al Grego:
'77, sorry.
When you joined the club, was it something to do, or were you just a fan of curling?
Allan Smith:
No, my wife talked me into joining. There's a business ladies curling club that she involved was involved with, and she suggested that we should join the club. And the mixed curling back then was really big, one of the largest sections in the club. So, I joined the club and I played in the men's league as well as the mixed curling league. And then we had two daughters, and we got them involved with family curling, which was started one day a month.
And then I started the Junior curling development program, and our teams went on to win the Canadian National Junior Women's Championship, in 1991.
Al Grego:
Wow. From this club?
Allan Smith:
Yes, from this club.
The junior program has been very successful. And out of that junior team, the national team from 1992, actually my two daughters, Heather and Krista, have both gone on to compete in the Scott Tournament of Harts, won their respective provinces. They both are national mixed curling champions. And Heather, the younger one, won the bronze medal. In fact, she competed this year as fifth player for New Brunswick. But she won the bronze medal for Nova Scotia in 2011, at Scott Tournament of Harts.
Al Grego:
So they've continued on with curling? In their lives?
Allan Smith:
Yeah. Yes, they have.
Al Grego:
Very good.
Both Allan and Tom are longtime members of the club. But, I'm about to meet someone who's been there longer than either of them as I sit in the clubhouse overlooking the ice, where about a dozen members are curling, there's only one other person in the clubhouse with me watching, sitting a few chairs down for me. His name is Hughie, and he's.. Well, I'll let him introduce himself.
Hughie Fensom:
Hughie Fensom. Hugh as in Louis in the news, but there's no news. And Fensom, was the first great elevator company in Canada.
Al Grego:
Oh, really?
Hughie Fensom:
And then all of a sudden in 1904, the two sons of the great elevator king in the United States, Elijah Otis, came up, and they interviewed our grandfather, John Fensom, and said, if you are able and willing to do this, I mean, you don't know that the second and third generations of the family are going to keep on doing the same thing. And so they turned and said, "well, let's sign a deal." So, it became, in 1905 Fensom elevators of Canada/ a division of Otis.
And everything that they did until the fifties was Otis/Fensom.
Al Grego:
Wow. And now they're just Otis?
Hughie Fensom:
Yes. And that was in the legal agreement, that both sides of the partnership signed.
Al Grego:
Wow.
Hughie Fensom:
I grew up here, here, here, here, here...
Al Grego:
Hughie's stories are enough to fill an entire podcast series of their own. But the long and the short of it is, Hughie lived in Ontario. When he was a kid, he suffered severe concussion playing hockey.
Hughie Fensom:
I don't remember getting home, but I went home. And luckily my father had a first cousin who was a neurosurgeon in Toronto, found him up and said, "Bill, Hughie's just had a major hockey concussion." And Bill said to father, "is he mumbling?" Yep. That's a good sign. He'll be okay then.
Al Grego:
As an adult, he delivered flowers for a wholesaler in Ontario. But, after an accident that left him with a minor case of epilepsy, Hughie ended up retiring early and moving back to Sackville to be closer to family. But his curling origin story goes back a little further.
Hughie Fensom:
And one day, the controller, who by name was Jim Cole, one of the best curlers here, sees me walking down the street one day and he says, "David, is that your son walking down by the restaurant in town?" And he says, "yes." "He wouldn't be much into contact sports, would he?" "Not at that size." "Tell him to get his butt up to the curling club on Saturday morning and learn the game of curling. He'll just live for every Saturday that he curls." No question about it. It was great.
Al Grego:
So, when did you join the club?
Hughie Fensom:
1966, and curled for 45 consecutive years. 27 of them in Toronto.
Al Grego:
After a fall on the ice a few years back, Hughie no longer curls. But, he continues to volunteer at the club, and has become a fixture.
Hughie Fensom:
And from that day on, it was, "I don't think I'm going to crawl anymore, but I want to be a member." And so, this club was small enough that they said, "oh, we could use you as a volunteer." And so they did. So, that's what I'm doing, and I come in and I set up our casual nature of this league, and it's a heck of a lot of fun.
Al Grego:
Up next, the Sackville Curling Club has overcome many challenges over its 128 years of existence. Well, will the recent pandemic be the last straw for this century old club? Stay tuned to find out.
You're listening to Yes, We are open. The Sackville Curling Club has been a fixture in the community for over a hundred years. And with the popularity of the sport on the rise, a stable board and steady membership, it seemed the club was in good shape for another century. But, they couldn't have possibly predicted the world would shut down indefinitely due to a pandemic. How did they fare? Let's find out.
In your time there, then, as president, if I were to ask you if there's something that threatened the business of the club to the point where you almost shut down, well, what would that be?
Tom Truman:
Well, certainly Covid. Yeah. Was a challenge.
Allan Smith:
Covid was a huge blow to us, as it was throughout the nation, of course. And our membership has declined drastically. And so, now we're in the stage of trying to rebuild that.
Al Grego:
Before the lockdowns began. What was your membership roughly?
Allan Smith:
I think it was around a 185.
Al Grego:
Okay, so almost 200?
Allan Smith:
Yeah. And now we're struggling to get a hundred. Yeah.
Al Grego:
That's tough.
Allan Smith:
Yeah.
Tom Truman:
Financially the club has been and remains in quite good standing. The challenge with Covid, particularly for us, was, we have a lot of gray hair in the club, and as the members get older, and sometimes when you have an event like this, whether it's Covid, or somebody breaks a leg or whatever gets, as they get a little older, they don't always come back.
So, our concern as a board was that we had a path forward that was, I won't say easy, but was manageable from a financial point of view through Covid. But, we were certainly very concerned that when things kind of, get back to normal, would there be any members back. Or would there be enough critical mass for the club to be successful?
Hughie Fensom:
So, we lost 25 to 30 members out of 150, and we haven't got them back either.
Al Grego:
Yeah. It's tough getting them back.
Hughie Fensom:
Yeah, it is.
Al Grego:
Now, I don't know what it was like at the province here. I know in Ontario, basically there was a, that date March 13th, 2020 is when kind of everything locked down. Was that the same in New Brunswick?
Allan Smith:
Yes, it was. Yeah.
Al Grego:
And I mean, what was kind of the initial reaction to that news?
Allan Smith:
Well, our president was very good at getting the emails out to the membership, and I think everybody accepted. This was the right thing to do, and there wasn't any kind of backlash from it. We did try to continue on in the, well, because the restrictions went into the next fall and winter as well, of implementing a number of changes.
Hughie Fensom:
This club did it really very well. And that's one thing that I'm glad you brought up. Before the pandemic, we would've had the three sheets on an afternoon like today, totally full. But then, they turn around and say, they put in a four point rule and one is green light, you can just play the normal game. You get the yellow light, and you can't have two people sweeping, because the ideal way to sweep is one on either side of the rock, and I'm just, your head's here and mine's here and you know, you got to be six feet away.
Al Grego:
And you're breathing heavily too. Because you're sweeping.
Hughie Fensom:
Then we got through red lighted, and we could actually come out and throw rocks for practice. But that wasn't much fun.
Al Grego:
You're on your own, you're by yourself, on the sheet. And then the next arrival was, you're closed. So, we closed for about six to eight weeks. Over the two years of the major pandemic.
Allan Smith:
We made the best of it, I think. And that was because of really good direction from our President and the board of directors at the time. There was some innovative thinking going on.
Al Grego:
Sure, yeah. You had to in terms of, for example, this hall here. You're renting it out, right?
Allan Smith:
No, no.
Al Grego:
[inaudible 00:18:59] It's gone?
Allan Smith:
That's right.
Al Grego:
You're not on the board anymore, right?
Allan Smith:
No.
Al Grego:
You don't know how close things got to maybe calling it?
Allan Smith:
I don't. You'd have to ask the president or Anna, the treasurer of that question. But, I don't get the impression that we came close because the club was in a pretty good financial situation, going into Covid. And so, I think we're able to weather. Now, as we come through Covid and resume full operation, we have to build our membership.
Al Grego:
Sure. What kind of steps have you done to do that? Is there any outreach that you're doing or are you just hoping that those who were members before will remember and come back?
Allan Smith:
Well, there, there's certainly that, and the board, of course, are the ones that would be working on strategies to do that. Unfortunately we don't have a community newspaper anymore. Another Covid casualty. And so, everything has to be done by social media.
Tom Truman:
No, we don't have a big marketing budget or anything like that. But, in the fall, we promote on social media and around town that, looking for new members. And we've got a pretty strong youth program that fortunately, we have some people in the community that are leading that. That helps, that brings a lot of people bring their parents out for little rocks, and bring their kids out for little rocks, and then the parents may join later because they see the sport, they want to curl with the kids. And, we do the best we can promotional wise, with what we have available. And people generally find us. So, that's good.
Al Grego:
Can you recall when things felt kind of normal again? I mean, I walked in here today, no one's wearing a mask. Everyone seems to be..
Allan Smith:
Really Not until this fall. We've had a whole bunch of competitions and things canceled because of Covid. But, this season has been reasonably normal. We have Bonsfield events and things, being scheduled.
Al Grego:
But once you were back in, were you happy to be back?
Hughie Fensom:
Oh, fabulous. It's the one thing you find in the world of curling. The camaraderie out there, you talk about nothing but the game. But, after you come in here and the camaraderie is just fantastic.
Al Grego:
And how do you feel being able to get back there and curl on a regular basis?
Tom Truman:
Well, happy. I mean, its certainly, it's a normalizing thing right now to the last year, since the Omicron wave faded last winter. And life is getting back to normal in all aspects. And getting back to the Curling Club without restrictions and without severe protocols, is certainly, I think helps people adjust, even though we're still in the pandemic.
Al Grego:
Coming up after the break, we find out what the future holds for Sackville Curling Club.
Cass McPhee:
Success in business doesn't come without moments of struggle. Moments when you had to face your challenges head on. As the proud partner of Canadian business, Moneris plays a critical role in empowering businesses with the payment processing tools they need to succeed. Together, we are building stronger businesses, where business owners everywhere can stand up to their challenges without slowing down. Moneris, proud partner of Canadian business.
Al Grego:
Welcome back to Yes, We are open. Sackville Curling Club seems to have come out of the pandemic in relatively good shape. And that's a no small part, thanks to the steady leadership of Tom Truman and his board. They have some work to do to attract new members, but it sounds like they're well on their way. So, what does the future look like for Sackville Curling Club? Let's find out.
What do you hope for the future of the club?
Tom Truman:
I think the club is, I think curling as a sport is much more visible and much more accessible than maybe it was in the past.
Al Grego:
It's certainly getting a higher profile in the Olympics, recently, in the last few Olympics.
Tom Truman:
Yeah and even just on general television, that people are more aware of it, with our youth program that we're working with. And the future looks good. I mean, I think like all things, you got to keep your eye on the ball, and it's a good sport.
It fits well regardless of your age and it's, they say the Olympics are raising its profile and, yeah, it's a lot of fun. So, I think our club has got a good future. We've got a good group of people that are volunteers, that are on the board, and that run the club, very best.
Al Grego:
You mentioned the youth programs that you're running. Are they up as well, would you say?
Tom Truman:
Oh yes. Yeah.
Al Grego:
I mean, how important would you say this Curling Club is to the town of Sackville?
Allan Smith:
It's extremely important, because it's not just a curling club, it's a social club. But, it's a club that offers a lot of facilities for various events. The room we're recording this in now, is a banquet room, but it's rented out for weddings. There's exercise classes going on here, judo and those sorts of things. So, this is a really nice rentable space for the community to use. So, the Curling Club has always been very much a, not just a private curling club, but used, widely by the community.
Hughie Fensom:
There is a wonderful book put out by a female, who was the president, I think probably the first president of the Canadian Curling Association, on the women's side. And there was somebody on the men's side as well, who said, "if you didn't grow up in a small town, you wouldn't know curling." And that's the simple fact of the matters.
Al Grego:
All right. And just so, your future with the club, what do you hope to do, moving forward with the club?
Tom Truman:
No, I mean, from my own perspective it's just the board is volunteers, and I mean, hopefully as my time passes there, that we leave it, I leave it, not that it's me, because I don't do any of the work, it's the rest. But, hopefully it thrives and is in better shape, or as good a shape as it was when I started my term as president.
Al Grego:
And in terms of your curling career, do you hope to continue that as long as you can?
Tom Truman:
Oh yeah, I will. It'll be part of [inaudible 00:25:32]
Al Grego:
Thank you so much, Tom, for your time today.
Tom Truman:
You're quite welcome.
Al Grego:
Tom, is the Sackville Curling Club open?
Tom Truman:
Yes, we are open.
Al Grego:
That's the story of Sackville Curling Club.
What struck me during my visit to the club was the diversity in ages and occupations of the members on the ice that afternoon. Hughie put it best at one point when he told me, it was a sport where a banker and a farmer can share the same sheet of ice, young and old, even different genders.
It's not necessarily a sport of speed or strength, but of strategy and skill, and sweeping. There's a whole lot of sweeping. I tried curling once, in high school gym. We spent some time at the local curling club and learned how to play the sport. It was fun. I can completely understand how someone could get hooked. And much like golf, the allure of curling has as much to do with what goes on after the game, than the game itself, the social part. But unlike golf, curling seems less frustrating.
But that could just be me speaking from experience. So, you might ask what a new business might be able to learn from an institution as old as Sackville Curling Club? Well, let's see. In it's 128 year history, it has seen world wars, depressions, recessions, Y2Ks, 9/11s, and yes, even more than one pandemic. And it has survived them all. So, what's the secret? Strong leadership? Great members? Saving up for a rainy day? Dumb luck? Maybe it's all of the above, or none of the above. Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe all that matters is throwing the perfect draw to the button, or throwing that oh so satisfying triple takeout. I digress. As was previously mentioned, curling is enjoying a resurgent in interest, thanks to its inclusion in the Winter Olympics in 1998, and the increased media coverage. This bodes well for Sackville Curling Club's efforts to grow their membership. Couple that with the amazing surrounding community, and you have a recipe to last at least another 100 years.
Yes, We are open is a Moneris podcast production. I'd like to thank Allan, Hughie and Tom for taking the time to share their story. You can learn more about Sackville Curling Club at sackvillecurlingclub.com, and you can follow them on Facebook at Sackville Curling Club. For more information about this podcast, visit our site, yesweareopen.com. If you'd like to support us, please write us a review on Apple Podcasts, or rate us on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're a Canadian small business owner, or know of one with an interesting story of perseverance to tell, I'd love to help tell it. You can contact me at podcast@moneris.com.
Tune in next week for another story of small business struggle and survival, on the Yes We Are open podcast. I'm Al Grego, thank you for listening.