Father and son ready to roll rocks
Yukon rink features youthful skip, dad, writes Terry Jones.
Thomas Scoffin can’t remember riding a curling rock at the Whitehorse Curling Club when he was one. But his dad Wade remembers sitting him on one and pushing it down the ice.
Curling fathers do that with their kids.
Who would have thought all these years later, after Thomas moved to Edmonton to attend the University of Alberta to curl for the Golden Bears for five years, that he’d take his dad to the Brier to ride the rock in a different way.
Thomas will skip and dad Wade will play second for Yukon in the Brier set to open here Saturday.
The youngest skip in Canadian junior history when he went 1-11 at age 12 in 2008 in the first of seven national junior finals, it’s tough to tell who is more excited, the 23-year-old son or 51-yearold father.
“I’m looking at this as Thomas’ first Brier and I believe the first of many. And I’m assuming it’s my last. So I’m going to enjoy it for all it’s worth from both perspectives,” said Wade, who curled in two Briers (2002 and 2008) as a third for the Territories and in another (2015) when the Yukon entry was part of the relegation system.
Wade has played with his son in various events and has coached him from the beginning. He sees a comparison between his son and last year’s Brier champion, Brad Gushue of Newfoundland.
“You could tell when he started going to juniors when he was 12 years old and started to win that he had some special skills to develop. Hopefully this will turn into the same long-term development model that Gushue had,” Wade said.
The younger Scoffin said: “I grew up in a curling club. I was able to throw my first rock into the house at a very early age. I think it was Grade 1.”
Scoffin competed in the Canadian Junior in 2012 when Edmonton’s Brendan Bottcher won both the Canadian and World Juniors.
“He told me the University of Alberta had just a tremendous program. I moved to Edmonton and getting a chance to work with Rob Krepps was a great opportunity.”
It was an easier decision to move to Edmonton and the U of A than back to Whitehorse for young Scoffin.
“It was a tough call. There were a lot of factors. My family is back home. My girlfriend is back home. I had a great opportunity with a job that was lined up for me. But it took me a long time with a lot of thinking. I had a great group of guys I was playing with in Edmonton.”
Having a chance to curl for Yukon was a factor as well. Being able to play with his dad was another part of it.
“We’d kind of talked about that a few times over the years thinking how cool that would be. When the chance came up, we jumped all over it.”
With the new rule allowing one import player per team, longtime Edmonton curler Tom Appelman, 35, was recruited as third. Steve Facteau, 46, is the team’s lead. He works with Wade as an occupational therapist.