The 13th honorary lifetime member of the St. Albert Curling Club is in select company.
“I certainly am,” admitted Ray Rouault of the achievement bestowed upon himself at the club’s season windup celebration last Saturday.
“It hasn’t hit home yet to be included with the greats of the past.”
Rouault, 84, joins Armand Donais, Wally Irwin, Jim Flynn, Casey Anderson, Art McCormack, Hec Gervais, Betty Anderson, Shirley Fisher, Dave Berezan, Jack Winter, Neil McKay and Don Johnston on the club's lifetime member wall of fame.
“It means a lot to be recognized because I’ve curled here for 58 or 60 years. A lot of these old-timers have gone and passed away but it’s just nice to know them. I’ve curling with some of them and beat some of them,” Rouault said.
Jackie Rae Greening, the club’s out-going president, described Rouault as the ultimate member on and off the ice.
“For 60 years, Ray has been a member of the St. Albert Curling Club, playing an average of three times a week. In addition to his love of the game, he has volunteered his time in so many ways and has done it with little or no fanfare, from building trophy cases to helping build the original Friendly Giant Lounge to being president of our club,” Greening said. “Ray is a member every club needs to survive and thrive. He plays the game he loves, plus he volunteers his time, all in a friendly, positive way.”
Rouault was born in St. Albert and started rocking the ice in his early twenties. Flynn was his first skip at the club’s original rink, a wooden structure built in 1949 and located downtown next to the skating rink across from the Bruin Inn.
“It was natural ice, a two-sheeter. When it was cold it was really cold and when it warmed up the drips on the roof fell on the ice and created a little mound which we had to shave,” recalled the St. Joseph High School alumnus. “When it turned mild during a bonspiel and there were black marks all over the ice. You could hardly heave (the rocks) down to the other end because the ice was so heavy but that’s the way it was and we had fun with it.”
Rouault served as president from 1955 to ’58 before the new six-sheeter opened for the 1959/60 season and was an original shareholder in the Tache Street rink.
“The backers that backed it ran into trouble, financial problems, and it was quite a struggle to get the rink back up to par. Those guys, three guys (Ron Harvey, Fred Laird and Bill Penrose), bankrolled it for a couple of years until debts were paid,” Rouault said. “In the early days here the upstairs was not finished and we had work bees to put up drywall and put plywood on the floor and painting bees when the drywall was up.
“Now, just look at this rink. Again, it’s about the volunteers, especially with the new renovations, the front end and the upstairs, and the new ice plant and the concrete floor, which is now being used for different functions. It’s come a long ways.”
Rouault also gave a shout out to the City of St. Albert with its lease agreement with the club.
“They’ve done a tremendous job of backing the community to keep it alive and well,” he said. “It all bodes well for the future, especially when you see all these little kids taking lessons here after school. It’s just fantastic.”
Rouault was a fixture in the men’s and mixed leagues while farming west of the grain elevators near Big Lake. His wife, Mary Low, was also an active curler.
“Curling has been fantastic for me and our family actually. It’s played a prominent role in lives,” said Rouault, who will celebrate 60 years of marital bliss with his No. 1 fan in October. “This was our social life when we first got married. We had (four) kids and we had to hire babysitters to come here so we could curl mixed.”
The curling fraternity is a tight-knit group where friendships are forged during post-game drinks.
“Curling is a great game for meeting new people,” Rouault said. “After the game you socialize and that’s the beauty about this club. We’re very friendly.”
Rouault is still a regular in the Tuesday and Thursday men’s leagues, and has curled for about the last 15 years as the lead thrower while calling the shots for Mike Schoenberger, Paul Retz and Dave Retz. His son, Ron, and grandson, Blaine, have also carried on the Rouault curling tradition.
“I still enjoy the game and I especially enjoy the stick league now on Fridays,” said the grandfather of six and great-grandfather of three.
Rouault started using the stick about six years ago.
“I can’t bend down anymore,” he said of the switch to stick to deliver rocks. “It keeps a lot of these guys alive to be able to come out and spend an hour on the ice with their partner (two curlers on a team in stick). It’s a great addition to the club. It keeps everybody going and now they’ve got three leagues that are full on Fridays.”
Among the highlights of Rouault’s curling career was qualifying for the 1984 senior (50-plus) provincials at Vulcan in his first year of eligibility with Nick Ronsky, Gordon Rowse and Al Mitchell; was the St. Albert representative in the 1968 zone playoffs; curled in the 1990 and 1992 northerns and scored an eight ender on sheet six at the club in 1989.
Rouault also watched in fascination as St. Albert curlers like Greening, Marc Kennedy, Jamie King and Scott Pfeifer literally grew up at the club while graduating into the competitive ranks at the provincial, national and world levels.
“I curled against most of them when they were kids, when they used to curl with their parents, so to see their success is pretty special.”
