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REMEMBER THIS? Misunderstanding between Lassies and Hounds makes news

Remembering the 1978 Macdonald Lassies Championship held in the Memorial Gardens

From the archives of the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library:

In 1975, curling fans in Sault Ste. Marie got some exciting news: the city would be host to the 1978 Macdonald Lassies Championship.

The event was sponsored by Macdonald Tobacco, who also sponsored the Brier at the time. The event title, the Lassies, was a reference both to the gender of the curlers involved and to the logo of the tobacco company, which featured a woman in traditional Scottish regalia. The championship saw the best women curlers in Canada – one team representing each province plus one for the Northwest Territories-Yukon – compete for a national title. 1978 would mark the first time it would be held in Sault Ste. Marie, with curlers from across the country taking over the Memorial Gardens for just over a week.

Ready to tackle the challenge of hosting a national curling event, the organizing team quickly began putting everything in order. By 1976, the newspaper reported that Edie Kerr, organizing committee chair, was hard at work, coordinating the event with the Memorial Gardens and arranging accommodations for competing athletes.

Kerr was one of over a dozen committee members dedicating countless hours to the event. Also involved were Ola Gard, Suzanna Pihlaja, Reta Graham, Eva Clarke, Bea Fisher, Brenda Whitfield, Eila Rancourt, Maureen Topp, Barb Fillion, Ruby Newell, Elaine Rajnovich, Mary Smail, Ella Jean Richter, Rita McAuley, and Elizabeth Snell, and numerous other volunteers who prepared food, chauffeured athletes around, and more.

The organizing committee also launched several fundraising initiatives through 1977, including a garage sale and a hoedown. While the event was sponsored by Macdonald Tobacco, organizers in the host city still had to pay for things like the rental of the Gardens, postage costs, and printing costs, to name a few of the expenses. For 1978’s event, the Sault Ste. Marie Ladies Curling Association (SLCA) had to raise approximately $30,000 to cover their costs. Unfortunately, their application for an $11,000 Wintario grant was unsuccessful, although they did receive just under $500 to pay for the out-of-town icemaker hired to transform the Memorial Gardens from a hockey rink into a series of curling sheets.

Through the beginning of 1978, the teams began qualifying, and fans could start to get a sense of who they’d be watching vie for the top spot. Unfortunately, Rita Evenden from the Soo Curlers did not qualify as the Ontario representative – however, five sweepers from Sault Ste. Marie were in the wings to sub in for any teams that needed them. As well, there would be a “Real touch of Scotch” in the form of four prominent women curlers visiting from Scotland. They weren’t there to compete but were guests of the competition; they paid their own way over, but their accommodations were complimentary in return for their attendance.

Mayor Nicholas Trbovich released an official proclamation declaring February 26 to March 3 as “Curling Week.” The Sault Star released a special insert that profiled all the teams, provided a helpful dictionary of common curling terms, and also included ads of interest to the “Lassies”: restaurants, clothing stores, hair stylists, and, of course, cigarettes.

Tickets were available for $1.50 a game or $10 for access to all the draws. And when the championship began on February 26, 1978, approximately 2,000 spectators packed the Memorial Gardens to watch the opening ceremonies.

As the teams met in round robin play, crowd favourites quickly emerged. One such favourite, Penny LaRocque of Nova Scotia, used a whistle to communicate instructions to the rest of her team, a relic from a recent bout of bronchitis. Her “exuberant style of play” earned her plenty of fans, with the Sault Star even commenting that “Penny LaRocque mania [was] sweeping the curling scene in Sault Ste. Marie.”

However, it wasn’t all smooth sailing. On the morning of February 28, 1978, officials arrived to find the curling ice damaged, and rocks left scattered across the playing surface. The ice was chipped in spots, there were dirty footprints on the frozen surface, and some of the boards had been knocked askew.

As it turned out, some members of the Greyhounds, who were temporarily practicing at the Norris Center in Michigan but had access to the Memorial Gardens to retrieve their equipment, had entered the arena and left a mess in their wake. There was some disagreement over what exactly had happened. Some felt that the hockey players had slammed 40-pound rocks onto the ice leaving deep cracks. Others argued that they were simply walking the stones from one end to another with their street shoes on. However, the end result was the same. The first draw of the day had to be delayed by approximately half an hour while the ice was restored.

The story quickly snowballed. By the following day, the controversy had even made the Globe and Mail, with the headline, “National women’s championship delayed: Angry curlers say hockey players spoiled ice.” One of the organizers of the event told the Globe, “It’s a bloody disgrace. The city owns the arena, but I understand that the hockey team acts as though they own it. The people here are fed up with them.”

Some people involved were unhappy with the media attention; the icemaker was described in the Sault Star as being “edgy and nervous” as he spoke with reporters from across the country, telling them, “Let’s please not make it more than what it is…. I would rather forget about it now. It’s over and done with.”

However, there was more than just damaged ice to contend with. When the Hounds returned from their practice to unload and store their equipment at the Memorial Gardens, committee member Reta Graham had to tell them to be quieter as they were disturbing the games in progress. According to Graham, “We exchanged a few words and then I said that they had already made enough news for one day with the story on the curling rocks having been sent across the entire country and they certainly didn’t want to make it any worse…. That’s when one of the people in the group, I don’t know which one, said, why don’t you mind your own ------- business you stupid -----.”

All of this came on the heels of another incident mere months before, when the Hounds made a public apology after harassing and mocking people at the airport.

By the following day, after an emergency meeting of the Hounds’ executive, Soo Greyhounds President Jim McAuley issued an official apology, adding, “The issue is far from being closed…. I just wat to meet with the coach so we can compare our findings on the matter and take whatever disciplinary action, if any, that it calls for. It’s an embarrassment for team management and that can’t be brushed away, and if there was any possible thing that we could do to rectify it we would do it…. If hides deserve to be burned, rest assured they’ll be burned.”

He would later walk back this statement, telling the press, “Everybody in the building knew how disturbed I was. City Hall was concerned to the point of having us (the hockey club) substantiate why we should continue using the building. A lot of people got very emotional about what happened and, I admit, so did I.”

Ultimately, Jim McAuley met with coach Paul Theriault, and they determined that there was no malice on the part of the Greyhounds when they damaged the ice. Rather, the hockey players were trying to be helpful by clearing the rocks off the ice for the icemakers. As a result, they would not be reprimanded. However, the player who swore at Reta Graham in the hallway was disciplined and instructed to deliver a personal apology to her.

Despite all the uproar, that wasn’t the only media attention the Macdonald Lassies received throughout the tournament. There were, of course, articles recounting the games, a blurb speculating about how the impending marriage of one of the curlers could affect her team, and more. In one human interest-focused article, the Sault Star noted that the organizers were “away from home too,” not just the players, thanks to how busy they were putting on a world-class event. Sault Ste. Marie women were baking homemade treats for the out-of-town curlers and other guests – and one organizer noted with pride that they hadn’t had to resort to store-bought cookies yet. “Nine-tenths of the curlers haven’t eaten tie plates or genetti loaves in their lives and they just love them.”

Ultimately, the team from Manitoba, skipped by Cathy Pidzarko, was victorious. It marked an end to a successful event and years of preparation. As one Sault Star editorial noted, “Many women curlers in this city worked for more than two years to plan and carry off this curling event that has attracted nation-wide attention. Edie Kerr and all of her fellow workers deserve the very warmest appreciation of this community for their hard work to make the Canadian Lassies event a success and to put this city on the country’s curling map. Well done, indeed.”

The event led to a surge in interest in local women’s curling. And as for the Lassies? Due to government regulations surrounding tobacco companies and advertising, by 1980, the event was no longer sponsored by Macdonald Tobacco. The event was renamed, first as the Canadian Ladies Curling Association Championship, then as the name you may know it by today: The Tournament of Hearts.

While the general consensus was that it would be a long time before the women’s tournament returned to the Sault – likely not within the lifetime of the fans in the 1978 crowd – that prediction proved too pessimistic. In 2010, just over 30 years later, The Scotties Tournament of Hearts would return to Sault Ste. Marie, with Jennifer Jones and Team Canada winning the event.

Each week, the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library and its Archives provide SooToday readers with a glimpse of the city’s past.

Find out more of what the Public Library has to offer at www.ssmpl.ca and look for more "Remember This?" columns here.



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