Savill already a winner at Alberta provincials

A year after battling cancer, Brier vet back curling again with Thomas rink

It would be a whale of a story. Hell, it already is.

If Craig Savill wins here, he’ll go back to the Brier for the 11th time, but for the first time curling for Alberta. He’d be following in the footsteps of his former Ontario front-end teammate Brent Laing, who won the Brier last year with Alberta champion Kevin Koe. And with Glenn Howard and third Richard Hart getting back again with Ontario, he’d complete the reunion with the team that won the Edmonton 2007 Ford World Men’s Curling Championship.

But that Savill was here throwing lead rocks for Charley Thomas to open play in the Boston Pizza Cup Alberta tankard Wednesday was a triumph to be trumpeted.

Going into the season last year, Savill was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a form of cancer.

He was never expected to curl at this level again.

To throw that first rock here Wednesday night for Thomas and his Edmonton Crestwood team of Nathan Connolly and Brandon Klassen was an achievement in itself.

“When I got diagnosed, my thoughts weren’t really on curling, they were completely on my health and my family. For once in my life, curling was set aside completely,” said the 38-year-old.

“Eventually, as I recovered, I started to believe I might do a little curling again. But I never dreamed I’d ever have a chance to get back to the Brier. And to do it, I darn sure didn’t think it would be by playing in the provincials in Alberta.”

Savill endured 12 two-week sessions of cancer treatments and experienced significant weight and strength loss. He used his curling training background to recover.

Thomas never dreamed he’d be giving Savill a call when the season started.

“D.J. Kidby got injured and had to have shoulder surgery at the start of the season, so we played with a few different spares for a few tournaments,” said Thomas, who was in a similar situation earlier this year when he replaced an injured Brad Gushue on what is now the No. 1 team in the world.

“To be honest with you, I didn’t really know that Craig was in any kind of condition to be playing full time. I wasn’t anticipating him ever making a full-time return to curling. It was when I was playing for Gushue in Gatineau, (Que.) I watched him subbing for John Epping. He looked great.”

It was a bit of a revelation to everybody, admitted Savill.

“We ended up winning that one (in Gatineau),” he said. “I first curled in Brockville, (Ont.), in September with Wayne Tuck’s team, but my mentality at the start of the year was that I didn’t want to curl much, maybe just here and there. I wanted to spend time with my family. I’d put them through a lot, especially this past year. And I was concentrating on my health and didn’t know if I could come back. I was just hoping to spare here and there.

“Until Charlie actually phoned me and said ‘Hey, will you play for us the rest of the year?’ I hadn’t given it any thought. What Charlie proposed was not to play a rigorous schedule, but just enough to prepare us for the provincials.”

Eleven months ago, it was thought to be a miracle to see Savill make a cameo appearance with his old team skipped by Howard at the Brier in Ottawa.

“It was extremely emotional. Every time I think about it, I get choked up,” he said. “I just wanted to be around and see the guys again and go to a few games. All of a sudden they were asking me to come out and throw a couple of rocks.

“That sort of blew me away. It was pretty cool to be able to come out, but I wasn’t expecting to be asked to throw a few shots. I certainly didn’t want to. I was pretty tired and I didn’t even know if my legs would stay under me to slide out. They kind of caught me off guard when they came over and told me I was going in. There was a TSN camera pointed right at me and I thought, ‘I guess I can’t say no now.’

“It turned out to be such a great moment. When I got in the hack, I noticed all the other games had stopped and all the players were looking at me. All I wanted to do was not fall coming out. It was pretty special, that’s for sure.”

When I got diagnosed, my thoughts weren’t really on curling, they were completely on my health and my family.