A Yarmouth County Sports Hall of Famer threw out the first stone of the 2017 Canadian Mixed Curling Championships last night.
Soon-to-be 99 year old Jim McRae had help from Yarmouth Junior curlers Logan Sweeney and Nick Doucette on the throw, as all 14 teams watched and cheered during the opening ceremonies.
McRae says while he couldn’t physically curl the stone, he was happy to take part.
“I haven’t thrown a rock for a year, and I’m scared of my balance. True enough, I did fall before tonight and I broke my collarbone, that meant I couldn’t have possibly thrown the rock. But they still wanted me anyway. I’m quite pleased and honoured to have the chance to do that.”
McRae only stopped curling in 2014.
He came to Yarmouth as a member of the Royal Canadian Air Force after the Second World War.
He re-joined the Air Force in 1951 and traveled and lived in Greenwood, Newfoundland, France and Quebec but returned to Yarmouth in 1964.
McRae says his love of curling followed him here.
“We had a curling club at Bagetville, my last air force station. And I joined up here when I got to Yarmouth. Over the years I curled in a lot of the Nova Scotia competitions. I must have curled in all the curling clubs in Nova Scotia. I’ve been curling for quite a while.”
He won the Legion Provincial championship in 1973 and 1978, and was runner up at the Toronto Dominion Bonspiel.
McRae says he tended the ice at the Yarmouth Curling Club for 25 years, so he was very interested to see the set-up at Mariners Centre.
