ESTEVAN - A long-time supporter of curling in Estevan has been elected as the president of the CurlSask board.
Helen Fornwald has taken the reigns of the organization for the next two years. She has been a member of the provincial board for the past five years, and has been working her way up the board's roles since then. Two years ago, she was elected to be the vice-president.
"Curling has always been a passion of mine growing up. I belong to a curling family, and I've curled all my life, and I continue to still curl, and I've been giving back to the sport," she said.
She also became interested in bringing high-level curling events to the community to provide a boost to the economy.
"It's really exciting to have it right here in our community rather than travelling around from province to province to see some of these world-class curlers. Bring them into our community and the economic spin-off is really exciting and important to our community," she said.
In 2018, the Estevan Curling Club hosted the SaskTel Tankard provincial men's curling championship and the Home Hardware Canada Cup of Curling. The latter was a Curling Canada event.
Then in January and February of this year, Estevan hosted the Viterra Scotties Tournament of Hearts provincial women's competition and the Tankard.
"It's really exciting when we can do that," she said.
As president of CurlSask, she'll be working with the "excellent and skilled" staff members, trying to promote the sport. They have a high-performance sport development model to have their athletes succeed at national and international levels. And they will continue to hold events to crown provincial champions.
Even during the offseason, Fornwald was busy with curling. She will be at an annual CurlSask youth summer camp in August. When the season starts, she'll be travelling to a lot of competitions.
"I'm not sure if I'll be able to make every one because I have to fit it into my work schedule, too, but … I should be present for the provincial ones."
Promotion of the sport is also important. A lot of the curling rinks suffered a hit to their numbers during and after the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, so she wants to build the numbers back up again.
She learned a lot as the vice-president because she was the right-hand person for the president, so it will be a smoother transition to the top role.
The majority of the board members are new for this year, and she is looking forward to working with them.
"It's really exciting the skillset that they bring," said Fornwald.
She noted she had been the lone southeast representative on the board, but now there is someone from Weyburn, too, so she's happy the region has a larger presence.
In an email to the Mercury, CurlSask said it is very excited to have Fornwald as its president for the next two years.
"Her expertise in business, operations and leadership will be an asset to our organization," CurlSask said. "As an active member of the Estevan Curling Club and no stranger to creating successful large-scale curling events, she will take curling into the future as we try to regrow and renew curling long into the future."
