The only ice Chester Perreault will create in retirement will end up in the bottom of his glass.
The head icemaker at the St. Albert Curling Club is calling it a career after 10 years of creating a level playing surface for participants of the roaring game.
“I’ve had a great run the last few years. I’ve met a lot of great people. It’s been a pleasure,” Perreault told a packed Friendly Giant Lounge during Friday’s ceremony at the club’s annual Curlers & Sponsor Appreciation Night.
Perreault, 67, spent the last seven years as the club’s lord of the rings after starting as an ice technician.
“Chester’s made this club what it is today. We can’t thank him enough for everything he’s done,” said president Buddy Beley before presenting a pair of bats to the noted slowpitch slugger, including one that was signed by club members and attached to it was an engraved plate to commemorate the retirement.
Club manager Nicole Bellamy also spoke from the heart about Perreault.
“You’ve always been a rock,” said Bellamy of the noted prankster. “With Chester, it’s all about the laughs and lots of jokes and all the teasing.”
Perreault’s biggest regret, according to Bellamy, “was not starting here sooner.”
“I can only imagine where I would be today if I didn’t start this career here as an icemaker,” he told Bellamy.
After 36 years working for the City of St. Albert, including the last 15 with the water distribution department, Perreault was looking for wintertime employment when his daughter, Aileen Hartman, the club’s bookkeeper at the time, told him the club was looking for someone to assist the icemaker.
After acing the interview, the club and Perreault agreed to put each other “on probation” to see how things would work out.
Perreault’s first day on the job was his worst.
“I was told by the head icemaker at the time, ‘Take this mop and mop the whole cement floor,’” Perreault said of the ground floor introduction to his new job before the ice was installed for the season.
“I thought, ‘What did I get myself into?”
Little did Perreault know that his son-in-law, Brian Hartman, had earlier helped establish the leveled floor for the new concrete surface as one of his first assignments for the city as an engineer technician.
“We had a good laugh over that,” Perreault said.
Three years later, Perreault was good to go as a certified head icemaker.
“He was once told the national average for icemaking was seven years so he’s hitting it right on the target,” Bellamy said of the level two craftsman.
Perreault’s tenure included a lengthy list of the following significant curling events in St. Albert
2010 club rebuilt.
2011 Continental Cup.
2012 Special Olympics Canada Winter Games.
2014 northern men’s masters playdowns.
2014 Canadian Open Stick Curling Championship.
2015 Fraternal Order of Eagles provincials.
2016 northern women’s playdowns.
2017 Alberta Scotties Tournament of Hearts.
2017 inaugural Alberta Stick Curling Championship.
2017 Fraternal Order of Eagles Pacific Northwest championship.
“You’re always trying to give good ice to good curlers,” said Perreault, who also volunteered his ice services at the 2013 Brier in Edmonton.
“For club curling you give them the best ice you can and then when it comes to bonspiels and major events you always do something just a little extra but of course it takes a little bit more man power to do it but that’s what you strive to do.”
Making ice is an art form that takes on a life of its own.
“You’ve got to treat the ice as a living, breathing organism. It’s forever changing. The way the weather changes outside it changes inside and you’ve got to be ready for it. You just can’t sit back and do the same thing over and over again. You have to roll with the punches I guess,” said Perreault, who will be on call if needed when the ice is installed in September. “You have to keep thinking about what to do next. It’s not something you do once a year and leave it that way. Everything changes.”
Perreault and his crew study the ice like curlers chart rocks.
“We try and watch people shooting and see what the rocks do, like are they curling a foot or are they curling three feet, as well as the speed of the rock,” said the grandfather of two who grew up in St. Albert in the family house where city hall is now located.
“It’s also the little things you do, like different size of pebbles you may use or the different kinds of temperatures of water you use. If you raise or lower the humidity it means a lot. Raising or lowering the ice temperature by one degree makes a big difference.
“Also, the pebble has to stand up which means it has to last eight ends of a game. It can’t break down.
“At the end of the day, it’s all about what’s best for the curlers so they can play the game they love.”
