Top teams scramble to find competitions

Canada’s top curling teams are trying to cobble together a competitive fall season despite the COVID19 pandemic decimating the calendar.

The Grand Slam of Curling was whittled from six events this winter to just two scheduled for next April, and November’s Canada Cup of Curling was cancelled, creating a void for the country’s elite curlers.

A slew of September and October bonspiels across Canada have been called off, but some remain on the calendar.

Curling Canada’s return-toplay guidelines provide a template for events to go ahead with several modifications on and off the ice to prevent the spread of the virus.

“We want to play as much as we can under whatever guidelines are set and get some competition in,” said skip Brad Jacobs of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. “That’s about all we can hope for. It’s not about going out and trying to win prize money and points. None of that stuff really matters. It’s about finding some teams and competition. It’s a weird feeling to not be able to get out there and play like we normally do.”

The annual Stu Sells Tankards in Oakville, Ont., and Toronto were both moved to Waterloo, Ont., for the weekends of Oct. 2-4 and Oct. 9-12.

Jacobs, John Epping, Glenn Howard, Jennifer Jones and Rachel Homan are among teams entered to play at the Kitchener-Waterloo Granite Club. Reigning Canadian champions Brad Gushue and Kerri Einarson are not.

Gushue, from St. John’s, N.L., said his team will likely enter Atlantic Canada events only for the rest of 2020.

If the three-time national champion and his teammates left the region to curl, they would have to quarantine for 14 days upon return under current provincial public health regulations.

“To go play a four-day event and have to quarantine for 14, the cost-benefit analysis doesn’t add up,” Gushue said. “We’re probably just going to play three events where typically we’d play in seven to 10 events.”

Einarson, from Gimli, Man., is planning to enter November bonspiels in Morris, Man., and Okotoks, Alta. Manitoba requires people who return to or enter the province from anywhere east of Terrace Bay, Ont., to observe a 14-day quarantine, but there is an exemption for “professional athletes and team members” as long as they’re asymptomatic.

Einarson is a rehabilitation assistant who works with the elderly, so she’s proceeding with caution.

“I just have to be quite careful because of my job,” Einarson said. “We’re going to try and stick close to home. We haven’t really discussed going east at all.”

Grand Slam now 2 events from usual 6