Getting to Know the North Bay Granite Club

I love curling. As a mortgage agent, it gets too easy to lose myself in documents and spreadsheets. So I started curling last year and can’t wait to get back on the ice this year. The North Bay Granite Club’s curling season is just kicking into gear with a celebration of the club’s 75th birthday. I chatted with the club’s General Manager, Laura Johnston, about curling, tennis, and the club’s role in the community.

“I think that [curling] is an inclusive sport. It’s something that is for all ages, all skill levels,” Laura said.

As a non-profit organization, the club offers the North Bay four seasons of activity.

What can you do at the North Bay Granite Club?

The Granite Club is an athletic centre focused on curling, tennis, and pickleball. Its amenities include a six-sheet curling arena, five outdoor tennis courts, and two outdoor pickleball courts.

Beyond the primary sports, the club hosts a variety of community events as well. Laura notes, “we do a cornhole league in the spring, and we host a lot of other events, like weddings, music, band nights.”

Laura and the club staff have worked hard to make the club as inclusive as possible. “We introduced a new stick curling league… so that makes it more accessible for people who might have had an injury or don’t feel comfortable getting down into the slide position.”

They offer programming for all ages:

• Curling: Men and women’s competitive league, open league, and open triples. They also run an adult Learn to Curl (18+) and a junior Learn to Curl (ages 5 to 18), both are 7-week programs. The junior program is a bridging program into U9, U12, and U18 groups.
• Tennis: Includes a Tennis 101 program run by Tennis Pro Francois, a singles league, and a doubles league. The junior program runs a Quick Start program on Saturday mornings, which bridges players into competitive teams known as Red Ball, Orange Ball, Green Ball, and Yellow Ball.

The club also hosts multiple bonspiels and tournaments. For tennis, they host a Spring Slam, a Summer Slam, and Club Championships. Their curling bonspiels (tournaments) include a large 48-team summer spiel they’ve run since 2014.

75 Years of curling

The Granite Club boasts a long and storied history in North Bay. “Our curling facility has been here since 1950,” Laura said. They started out purely as a curling club. The tennis facility came on later.

The Granite Club recently celebrated its 75th Anniversary with a unique event: 75 ends of continuous curling played over a weekend. Laura described the experience:

“It was, a lot of endurance, I would say, for many. It was good, though. It was nice to see people participating on the ice, having fun, and the score was really unique, because it was in a cumulative score. The final score… was something like 72 to 63. We had doubles [teams], stick curling, we had regular four-person curling, all contributing to the ends going up on the scoreboard.”

A force in North Bay

The club is known for hosting high-level competitive events, which Laura says “sets us apart a little bit from other curling clubs.”

Standout moments include hosting:

• The Ontario Winter Games for the Special Olympics (2014).
• The 2015 Mixed Nationals, which saw top names in the sport compete.
• The men’s Northern Ontario Provincial Championships.
• The 2018 Women’s Worlds.
• Two Grand Slam events, which have international teams from countries like China, Switzerland, and Italy.

Many of these large events were a collaborative effort with the city and the Battalion franchise, using Memorial Gardens to meet seating requirements. Thousands of people turn up to watch these events.

Laura highlights the importance of the community, noting that the club relies heavily on volunteers. “The other big piece would be all of the volunteers, our community base in North Bay and area. It’s such a curling community, and so many people want to get involved.” Volunteer needs range from on-ice coaches and volunteer bartenders to statisticians and timers for major competitions. The last Grand Slam event hosted over 200 volunteers.

The club is truly multigenerational, with members ranging from 5 years old up to their 90’s. They also support local athletics by hosting a healthy high school league on Mondays, with over 50 students from grade 9 to grade 12.

What’s Coming Up

The Granite Club continues to serve as a high-profile host for major competitions.

“We’ve got confirmed on our calendar in January 2027, Special Olympics Winter Games that are coming to North Bay, so we’ll be hosting the curling portion of that,” Laura said.

In addition to hosting events, the club is committed to maintaining its facility and expertise. It hosts a high-performance junior camp and an Ice Tech course through the Ontario Curling Council in July, taught by Head Ice Technician, Bruno Bin, and Tom Leonard from Sudbury. This course is designed to mentor and tutor others in the highly detailed process of preparing and maintaining curling ice.

I’m very grateful that we have the North Bay Granite Club. Curling is something that I look forward to through the winter. So a big thanks to Laura Johnston and her staff for all the work they do at the club.