The Assiniboine Memorial Curling Club was the host to our community’s 20th Manitoba Japanese Canadian Curling Bonspiel on April 5th. It was a fun-filled day. This was our first time curling at the Assiniboine, and it worked out perfectly as we had 8 sheets of ice for our 16 teams. This enabled us to all curl at the same time. Many thanks to Marlene Mori who was able to secure this club for us.
Each team played at least three 4-end games, and our C-side teams had to play up to 6 draws to capture C-side! In between games, there was a draw-to-the-button contest, with Team Poole winning.
On Saturday evening, over 100 curlers and guests attended the Japanese Cultural Center to celebrate the day. The Japanese cuisine meal always provides a special ending to our day.
This year, in honour of Doug Shibata who passed away in 2024, and who was our Draw Master since our bonspiel’s inception, the family awarded the “Doug Shibata Sportsmanship Award”. The award was given to Dan Namba, a long-time participant in the bonspiel, for his sportsmanship and dedication to curling in our bonspiel and curling community. He was instrumental in getting Doug back on the ice after his Parkinson’s diagnosis.
Congratulations to all curlers (16 teams) and especially the winning teams for 2025.
- Toru Suzuki Champions: Bob Okabe, Blair Yoshida, Kent Yoshida, Maddy Yoshida
- A side runner up: Brent Yamamoto, Paul Dyment, Ashley DeBaets, John Rempel
- B side winners: Gerald, Ryan, Hanako and Garrick Teranishi
- B side runner-ups: Judy Wolchuk, Karl Kennedy, Cory Wolchuk, Lisa Ito
- C side winners: Brooke Onagi, Matt Bijl, Amanda McComb, Shanelle Davis
- Consolation winners: Ken Onagi, Rod Bijl, Rick Sweeney, Tracy Bijl
This bonspiel would be impossible to execute without our generous bonspiel donations.
- JCAM Donation: Ken Matsukubo
- Prize Donations: Don MacDonald, Shibata and Sands families, Jim & Margaret Suzuki, Folklorama, Team Wolchuk, all 16 curling teams
Thank you to our community’s volunteers, for without them the banquet would not be possible. A huge thank you to Hazel Saito and Caroline Yamashita for their leadership of the banquet. The Japanese meal was absolutely delicious! Many thanks to the shoppers, cooks, sushi-rollers, set-up, servers, clean-up crew, bartenders, and many others. The volunteers deserve a big thank you from all the curlers and their guests, so domo arigato.
They say a picture paints a thousand words, and we hope to have the event pictures posted to the JCAM website in the near future.
2026 will be the bonspiel’s 21st anniversary, so we hope to see you there.
Sandra Shibata
