If you fix it, they will come back. How a small town in Quebec revived its legion

As you walk up the steps into the lobby of the Otterburn Legion Memorial Curling Club, you might notice something special: Life.

On a recent Saturday, peals of laughter and the sounds of gentle teasing bounced throughout the lounge as people enjoyed a few suds.

It was a busy day at the 80-year-old building. Dozens of people had gathered for an annual fundraiser here, in the community on Montreal’s South Shore.

Besides the curling rink, the building houses the local Royal Canadian Legion Auclair Branch 121. But they were both dying out. Membership was dwindling, the building was rotting and the entire complex was at risk of shutting down. The club needed a saviour.

Laura Derry isn’t a big fan of curling. “I hate it,” she said with a laugh.

But on this day, she was sliding down one of the rink’s two sheets of pebbled ice, sweeping in front of stones to raise money for Kurling for Kids. Nearly everyone at the Otterburn Curling club agrees, if it wasn’t for Laura Derry, this curling rink would very likely be sitting empty.

The problems began just before the pandemic put the world on pause.

“We had a leak in our foundation in the women’s changing room,” Derry explained as she gave a tour of the refurbished facility.

The water infiltration meant the carpet had to be replaced. Well, why not change the flooring in the entire basement? From there, Derry and some members decided it was high time the ceiling tiles were replaced.

How about some new furniture while they were at it? Derry found material on social media and convinced some sympathetic companies to give them material at a discount. She got busy creating fundraisers to be able to pay for them.

“I was selling some scarves and I was doing baskets for whatever occasion came up. I did a breakfast basket. I did a Thanksgiving basket and people were buying their tickets through me online.”

But like many renovation projects, the problems were plentiful and the dollars were scarce.

The building needed a new condenser, a new kitchen and new curling stones. The outdoor shed had a mould problem. The rink wasn’t even operating at the time because the chiller had died. That’s a $25,000-dollar problem. Fundraising baskets weren’t going to be enough.

The Otterburn legion curling club has been refurbished, thanks to a dedicated team of volunteers. The building needed a new condenser, new kitchen and new curling stones. (Jay Turnbull/CBC)

Go big or go home

“I started looking at grants,” Derry explained. Soon enough, the club had the money to buy a new chiller. Derry pressed her luck and applied for two more grants the following year.

“I got both of them” she beamed “We were on fire.”

Derry also turned to the club’s dwindling membership for donations. Some of the $30,000 raised was spent on building a new bar; an essential for any respectable curling rink. She convinced one of her woodworking friends to custom-build it.

“It’s a gorgeous bar. I met some guys out on the West Island that have this stone company and they gave us a really good price for it.”

Derry, who now lives in Pierrefonds in the West Island, organized a group she refers to as her merry men: about a dozen volunteers who brought different skill sets to help get the work done.

“I have a retired electrician. I have a retired plumber. I have some really good people that are handy,” she said. Even people who weren’t very handy pitched in and learned new skills.

“This community loves their legion and it wouldn’t have happened without the whole community being involved. It kept some of us very sane through COVID. We worked together,” she explained.

Otterburn Park’s legion has not forgotten its original mission and is still the place where Remembrance Day ceremonies are based. But it has appealed to a wider audience by being a hub for social activities and sports in the small town. (Jay Turnbull/CBC)

Social hub for a small town

For many people, this facility is more than just a place to practise the sport.

“Curling is, I think, one of the most social sports that I’ve ever done,” said Tom Langton, who has been a member here for 37 years.

“The people on the ice, they’re all friendly, they’re there to have a good time. The tradition with curling is the winner buys the loser a drink. And then after, naturally, the loser repays the drink and it could carry on for a while,” he said with a laugh.

Laura Derry’s father, Mac Derry, is a fixture here. He curled for more than 40 years until just recently hanging up his broom and calling it quits. He says Laura tried to talk him out of retirement.

“She says, ‘how come you’re not curling now?’ I said I’m 89 years old and my God, there’s no one out there that age, eh? She says ‘there’s nothing wrong with you.'”

He wears a permanent grin and is the type of man to slap a buddy on the shoulder and call him old timer. He’s at the rink every day, sitting behind the glass, a cold beer and a bowl of peanuts in front of him, analyzing the game.

“What I do is, I have a drink just to keep me going,” he said with a laugh.

Laura Derry may have saved more than just a legion and curling club. She says she poured so much into saving this institution because it means so much to her family, and to the community of about 8,600.

Mac Derry curled for more than 40 years until just recently hanging up his broom and calling it quits. Now, he enjoys analyzing other people’s play. (Jay Turnbull/CBC)

“For a few people, I think, honestly, it would have been pretty much the end for them,” said Steve Upton, one of the members who spent months getting his hands dirty fixing up the place.

“A couple of our members thrive on this place. They’re here early in the morning. It’s a social gathering. It’s a centre for them to do something — get out. For a couple of them, I really honestly think that (closing) would have been, you know, probably life-ending for them.”

Langton is proud of what the team has achieved.

“We’ve built it back up,” he said while enjoying a post-game drink.

“People weren’t coming because it wasn’t as welcoming. Now, you walk in and everything’s bright and being new we’re getting more activities. We have bingos, pub nights, darts nights, cribbage. The whole atmosphere in the club has gone skyward and it can’t be beaten.”

The club members’ average age is probably somewhere in the 60s so there are efforts underway to shift that number downward.

“We’re hoping next year to try a junior program and if it takes off it’s going to be good. We’ll have younger kids to come up, get them into bonspiels against other clubs and build up some sort of foundation for them.”

Langton has been organizing the Kurling for Kids fundraiser for the past 16 years. Together with about a dozen others around the Montreal area, they have raised close to $5 million since 1999. The money buys new equipment for Montreal’s children’s hospitals.

The legion in Otterburn Park, Que., is a hub for community activities, including curling. Fundraising allowed them to buy new curling stones and upgrade the bar. (Jay Turnbull/CBC)

Hard work pays off

So far, Derry estimates she’s pulled in close to $250,000 in grants, and she’s not done.

She’s applied for another big grant to fix the outside of the building where insulation and windows need to be changed, the roof repaired and asbestos removed.

But the hard work has paid off. Membership has grown from 148 members before the pandemic, to 267 and counting. The short-term goal is to get 300 members by the end of the year.

“I am so proud of this community,” she said

“The legion was going to close. It’s close and dear to all of our hearts and we wanted to keep it running. We’re a really tight community, very tight community. We’ve got everybody’s back here,” she beamed.

“Nothing’s stopping us.”