Windsor’s Alice Bell knows a thing or two about curling. She started curling in 1965 when she joined the Southern Ontario Ladies Curling association. She served as local district representative of the SOLCA from 1983-1985 and became its president in 1988.

Bell and her local curling rink at the Windsor Curling Club won many awards and accomplished a record of seven straight years of winning the coveted Walker Tankard Cup.

In 1988, Bell’s hard work and commitment to curling was recognized when she won the Honorary Lifetime Achievement award from Ontario Curling Association.

But Bell wasn’t only a curler; she loved the sport and wanted to share it with everyone. From 1972-1976 she arranged to have the Turnbull Ursulak curling school come to the Windsor Curling Club for two-day clinics. Anxious to step up her game from 1978-87 she became certified in coaching through Curl Canada.

In 1984 she reached out to teams in Kingsville, Chatham, Leamington, Roseland and Windsor for competitive curlers to play in a Ladies Major League. She coached the Pam Leavitt Curling team as they represented the province in Canada’s premier ladies curling championship, The Scott Tournament of Hearts. As well Bell was a leader in the Curl Canada Coaching Certification program where she trained hundreds of coaches for many years. She was also instrumental in providing training to other athletes in Europe. In 1986, she took her curling coaching to a new level when she was invited to teach in Switzerland at two summer curling camps.

She was instrumental in bringing the playdowns for the Southern Ontario Tournament of Hearts to the Windsor Curling Club in 1987. She tackled the St. Clair College curling team and coached them to a zone and regional win in 1989. The team went to the Ontario finals in Ottawa.

In 2009, Bell decided it was time to bring pickleball to Windsor. Alone with two other women they started the Windsor and Essex County Pickleball Association which has close to 200 members when she retired in 2016.

A true testament of her tenacity made Alice Bell a great builder in the sport of curling and the promotion of women in sport. For this very reason Alice Bell is rightly placed into the Windsor / Essex County Sports Hall of Fame as one of the class of 2017 in the Builder category.