Murray Kutyn is an all-star volunteer, according to Glen Mikkelsen, CN Centre’s entertainment manager.
Kutyn is 39 years into his ice-making adventure for the Prince George Golf & Curling Club and has travelled the world sharing his knowledge on how to pebble, scrape and clip for a globally elite competition.
It started when he was growing up in Alberta and his curling parents would take their four sons to the rink.
Organizers at the rink told the boys they had to make themselves useful instead of just running around and so working in rinks became part of the deal, Kutyn said.
He started as a rink attendant, then moved to a golf and curling club, he added.
“I’ve been involved with a number of national events," Kutyn said. “I’ve helped out with two Scotties (Tournament of Hearts) both here in Prince George and the Road to the Roar, which was the Olympic pre-trials and I’ve done men’s provincials and women’s provincials and I was also the head ice technician for the Asian Winter Games in China in 2006.”
Back then, the City of Prince George was encouraging exchange students to come to the University of Northern BC.
“They brought them to Prince George to show them all the amenities,” Kutyn said. The group from China was taken to all the winter sports centres like the ice oval, all the arenas and the many ski hills.
“When they got to the curling club I hit it off with the curling officials there and at that time I was one of the ice techs for Curl BC and I put on clinics and stuff and they said they had some equipment that they didn’t know how to use so I told them to bring their ice makers here and I’d put on the clinic and they decided to take me to China instead so that’s what I did for the first time and the second time I went to China was for the Asian Winter Games.”
What is it like to be part of the current World Women’s Curling Championships?
“All of these competitions are really neat because you get to prepare the ice for elite athletes,” Kutyn said.
The people in charge are the renowned Canadian father/son curling ice making team Dave and Mike Merklinger, who made the ice for the world championships taking place at CN Centre right now.
“It’s just a treat to work with them and we learn tons from them that I will take back with me to the curling club,” Kutyn said.
Regional ice makers were also invited to be part of the three teams of six that work on the ice a couple of hours ahead of each draw, Kutyn added.
“It’s been a really great experience and to see all the players out there has been really neat,” Kutyn said.
The ice has been really good and it gets worked on every day throughout the competition, he added.
There are three draws a day and there are three crews to tend the ice. One crew of six works ahead of the morning draw, another crew works ahead of the mid-day draw and the last crew works ahead of the evening draw.
Pebbling is a resurfacing technique which allows for the curling rocks to skim along the surface. If the rock was pushed along ice that was not pebbled it would only go a few feet before stopping.
“The unused pebble is scraped off at the end of each game and we put on new pebble for the next game,” Kutyn explained. “We do that for every game and for the scrape – we do that for the evening game. We take off all of the old pebble and then we reapply the pebble for the next game, we clip it to get it a little bit faster and then that will last the whole game and then we start all over again – two hours prior to the next draw.”
There's still time to check out the world championship curling. For more information and tickets visit www.curling.ca/2022worldwomen/tickets/.
