The annual junior bonspiel of the Cochrane Curling Club continues to attract a large number of young curlers.

In total, 20 teams participated in the Nov. 30 to Dec. 2 event that saw eight teams in the U15 event and 12 in the two U18 events. Cochrane teams won both U18 events.

The Wipf Rink, of Cochrane, won the U18 boys. The team is formed by skip Kenan Wipf, third Connor Boudreau, second Ky Macaulay and lead Kyle Fukami.

The Cinnamon rink, also from Cochrane, won the U18 girls event. Teammates are skip Zoe Cinnamon, third Justine Hagey, second Elspeth Cooper and lead Raelyn Helston.

Team Kiist won the U15 event. Skip is Ben Kiist, third Blake Petkau, second Joel Warren and lead is James Huston.

There are two weekly sessions for young curlers offered by the Cochrane Curling Centre. Those with some curling skills can play in the Wednesday after school league from 4 to 6 p.m. There’s also curling Sunday afternoon from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Cochrane High has curling on Tuesdays after school.

“It’s been pretty steady the last couple of seasons,” says Larry Cinnamon, who heads up junior curling for the Cochrane Curling Club, “and this year we’ve come up a little bit more.”

The drop-in curling on Wednesday is a great opportunity to enhance their curling skills. There are teams that come out from both the Bow Valley and Cochrane high schools.

“Then there are some other players who just show up, which is great because it’s more of a drop-in program.”

Several young Cochrane curlers play out of other clubs and Cinnamon hopes they can change that.

“We’re definitely working on getting some of the players back to Cochrane. We want to bring a championship home. We want to hang another banner on the wall. We only have one and we want to hang another.”