The Deep River Curling and Squash Club is a totally volunteer driven sports club that has operated in this town for coming on 70 years.

This year one of our members, Bill Shorter, was honoured by the Canadian Curling Association (CCA) by being selected as the National Volunteer of the year for his contributions to the sport and to our club.

The award was presented to him by the CCA on the ice in front of a sold out crowd of 7,500 at this year’s Brier in Kingston.

At the fifth end break of the final match between Newfoundland’s Brad Gushue and Albertas Brendan Bottcher, Bill was marched to centre ice and presented with a prestigious banner that now hangs in the Deep River club.

Bill was nominated for the award by his fellow members including club president, Janice Bunge who wrote up the nomination in such glowing and eloquent terms that the CCA board of directors had no choice but to select Bill!

All kidding aside, Bill, a tireless volunteer who not only sits on the club executive as house and property chairman but also is very active as member of the ice maintenance team.

In being selected for the award for the 2018-19 year, in that period Bill also co-chaired a $150,000 project to replace critical ice plant and ice area piping and also led the development of a formal fire safety plan and a critical ice plant operation and safety manual.

Bill appeared somewhat in shock when the CCA called to tell him he had won the award – the club executive had kept it a secret – and Bill thanked all the many club volunteers who worked along side him to make the award possible.

The award came with a few perks as well – Bill received a pair of tickets for the final weekend of the Brier, hotel accommodation and got to sit in CCA’s private box.

That is where his fellow Brier attendees (Chris Knight, Leo Buckley, Reg McLeod, Jim Young, Don Koruluk, Bob Burton and Martin Chisholm) could see that he sat in luxury drinking free beer and eating chicken wings to his hearts content.

A well deserved reward for all his efforts – congratulations Bill!

(Photo: Bill Shorter (centre) is presented with the banner as Canadian Curling Association Volunteer of the year. The banner was presented by the CEO of the CCA, John Shea (right) during the fifth end break at this year’s Brier in Kingston, Ontario.)

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