Inducted April 2025 Nominated by Murray Pearson
Since joining HCC in 2000, Ross and Laurie Cotten have been major contributors to all aspects of our club, especially in their contributions and commitments of time, service and leadership in the development and delivery of our youth curling program.
When Jill Rivington began organizing a youth program to develop competitive youth curlers at Huntley, Laurie and Ross came forward and over the following 13 years, they operationalized the Huntley Curling Club youth program. They created a successful program for all youth curlers that enabled both social and competitive tracks to proceed and grow with significant youth membership growth. They both put in countless hours running the HCC youth program, on the ice every Sunday for about 8 hours, not to mention the time spent with prep work, tournament coordination, coaching time, and fund raising, which paid for our little rocks and contributed several thousand dollars to the club’s coffers.
Laurie provided the Board with a manual for running the youth program once Ross and she decided to step aside and came back in 2018 to act as coordinator, helping to bring the youth program back on track. Laurie was heavily involved in all aspects of the program, the kids loved her calm style and expertise, she excels at personal interactions, keeping many kids motivated to remain with the program.
They were crucial to every significant Huntley youth event, such as the year HCC hosted the Gore Mutual High School provincials and can confidently take credit for the development of dozens of the club's most successful junior curlers. Ross has coached several competitive teams under the Huntley banner, including Team Lyon-Hatcher, who finished as a provincial finalist. Both still come back to help on the occasional Sunday to keep things running when coaching staff is low.
Through their involvement, the program grew to over 100 total youth members. Both have also helped train many club members through instructional activities, clinics, Try Curling projects and helping instruct newbies during rentals. Both are accomplished curlers, I believe Ross has his name on more trophies than any other member, including several club championships.
In addition to their ongoing and significant contributions to youth programs, the Cotten’s are top tier all around volunteers. Ross never passes on a request to help our ice team with ice installation, maintenance and spring removal chores. Laurie recently managed the OCA ladies’ qualifiers, spending many hours there keeping the event on track.
