Emma & Emily are competitive curlers in the Ottawa area. They approached us to facilitate Rocks & Rings sessions for local elementary students.

Rocks & Rings Instructor Tom Sinclair, an experienced curler and coach, mentored Emma & Emily and had this to say about their Rocks & Rings day:

“It’s great to see young competitive curlers like Emma & Emily actively give back to the sport. Their success on the ice shows students what is possible when you work hard and dedicate yourself to a sport. As a Rocks & Rings instructor I love helping kids fall in love with the sport of curling and it’s been great to watch Emma & Emily experience that today. It’s been fun to be their Rocks & Rings mentor instructor while helping them give back to the sport I love”

Guest instructors Emily and Emma are also guest bloggers and they’ve shared their experience with us:

Energetic, educational, and one of the most amazing experiences. This is what we would answer to someone who asked us about our day as a Rocks & Rings instructor.

Our names are Emma Artichuk and Emily Deschenes and we are grade 11 students at John McCrae Secondary School. Aside from us being classmates we are also curling teammates and have been for the past 9 years. We both started curling at the Manotick Curling Club in the fall of 2010 and we have been best friends and teammates ever since. We decided we wanted to get involved in Rocks & Rings for two reasons; the first reason is because we had been working with a group of students from Barrhaven Public School in our Child Development and Gerontology class and we wanted to expose students to a new sport but, the second and main reason we wanted to get involved, is because we wanted to give back to the sport that has been so good to us. At first we were not quite sure how we were going to be able to get involved but after many emails and calls back and forth we were able to set up a date that we could become Rocks & Rings instructors for a day, and ultimately we found the perfect way to give back.

Our experience during our day as Rocks & Rings Instructors was something that will last with us through the rest of our lives. All the kids were so excited to learn about curling and the energy from all of them was amazing! We started our project by going into three different classes and gave them a presentation on who we are and an overview of curling. On the day of the event, we had to provide the students with a refresher on some of the rules of the game and then we were able to jump right into playing the various games. We played a variety of games and all the kids had a fantastic time, there was so much energy in the room. The day was super successful and we were very proud of what we were able to do.

We are both fortunate enough to have learnt curling at a young age and are now competing at a competitive level. This year as an example, our team went undefeated at Ontario U-18 Provincials and won a Silver medal at Nationals.

We strongly encourage you to bring Rocks and Rings to your school or group. It’s the perfect way to get children active and learn a new sport.

Please feel free to follow our team on social media

Twitter: @teamdeschenes
Facebook: Team Deschenes Curling
Instagram: Team Deschenes

Thank you to Team Deschenes for giving back to the sport they love and inspiring new curlers in the Ottawa area. We’re excited to continue to cheer them on in the future.