To have fun the Manitoba way, all you need is a rink, milk jugs and pals who can handle the cold

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There is no avoiding winter in Winnipeg, where temperatures occasionally dip below those of Mars. While some choose to suffer in silence through the city’s notorious hibernal season, a group of lifelong friends from Manitoba’s wintry capital have found a way to embrace it – and keep themselves laughing through the long, dark brumal nights.

“You’ve got to make the most of it, right?” says Glenn Buchanan, who launched a milk jug curling league from his backyard in the Winter-peg neighbourhood of St. James five years ago. “We get six months of it here.”

The Buchanans’ backyard “sheet” was the result of a happy accident. Their two kids hated the skating rink their parents built for them: “They were too little – they just cried and cried any time we tried them on it,” says Nicole Buchanan, a teacher. “So we decided to paint some rings on it and started curling with old milk jugs. That was so much more fun.”

Mr. Buchanan, an educational assistant, picks up the story from there: “The next fall, we were sitting around the fire with our baseball team – our closest friends – wondering: ‘How can we keep hanging out this winter?’ That’s when we told them about our curling rink.” It was a light bulb moment. That winter, Buchanan’s Jugs Club was born. “Basically, we found a way to combine our two greatest passions: curling and craft beer,” says Mr. Buchanan, whose ancestors have been curling on Winnipeg rinks since arriving from Scotland several generations ago.

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Jugging rules mimic curling: The team that delivers the most jugs to the rings – and the button at their centre – is the winner. Some Prairie folks curl with frozen jugs. But the St. James juggers – winter stans, who curl even when temperatures dip to a toe-burning minus 45 – found that they tend to topple over when frozen. “So, we fill up with warm water,” says Ms. Buchanan on a blustery, two-dog night earlier this season. “We keep extras on hand because they tend to freeze halfway through the night.”

Juggers have added a few more twists to the classic game. Spouses can’t play on the same team. Jugs that tip over don’t count. When throwing, only one foot can be on the ice – no one can remember why this rule exists. “We tried to make a rule that you had to have a beer in your hand when you threw, but that was just ridiculous,” says Mr. Buchanan.

Team names must include the word “jug.” There is Rub-a-Jug-Jug, The Notorious J.U.G., Mean Mother Juggers and Bone Jugs-n’-Harmony. Mr. Buchanan considered buying a set of mini rocks. But the milk jugs are unpredictable and “ridiculous,” adding to the fun, he says. “Plus, then we couldn’t call it jugging any more.”

Everyone’s throwing style is unique. Mr. Buchanan does a variation of the Manitoba tuck, a slide common among elite curlers from the province. His wife gets down on all fours and pushes the jug down the ice with two hands. One of their friends hurls the jug in the air, so it lands mid-sheet.

Five local brewers – Lake of the Woods, Devil May Care, Brazen, Brasserie La Shoppe and Oxus – sponsor the league, supplying juggers with beer on game nights all season long. As thanks, the league holds an all-day bonspiel every spring, known as the Brewers Cup. All five brewery owners tend to come out. Each creates a special, small-batch beer for the occasion.

The games, which are held once a month from December to March, start at 8 p.m. sharp. The après party will often go to 4 in the morning. After a long jugging night, Mr. Buchanan received a text from a friend who said his “face hurt from laughing.”

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The first iteration of Andy Mead’s curling sheet in Oakbank, Man., just east of Winnipeg, was also a hockey rink. But his kids are avid curlers – and cool on hockey – so he switched it out. His son, Bennett, 8, and daughter Amelia, 6, “are back there throwing rocks on it every single day.”

The young Meads, who are already curling in a junior league, come from fine curling stock. They spent much of their toddler years running around the rink with their curling-mad grandmother, their babysitter. And their uncle, Jon Mead, was third for Jeff Stoughton’s Manitoba team. They won a World Championship and a Brier – one of the 27 brought home by Manitoba, more than any other province.

Winnipeg has long been the acknowledged curling centre of Canada, and Manitoba has more rinks than Ontario and Quebec – the country’s two most populous provinces – combined. More and more Manitobans have begun putting up backyard curling rinks, says Mr. Mead, a principal, who pebbles his ice by applying a fine spray of water. His friend built 10 curling rinks for his students to play on. A colleague from the southern Manitoba city of Steinbach built several mini rinks in his back field for kids to use.

The point, Mr. Mead explains, is teaching kids not to be scared of ugly weather, to lean in to winter, to embrace its opportunities for fun and fulfilment. Manitoba’s extreme temperatures push creativity, adds Mr. Buchanan. He wants his kids to come to see winter as a blessing, and know that “retreat” is not the sole option.

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