Curlers forced to head home from women’s worlds in B.C.

It was a surreal scene in Prince George, B.C., on Thursday as curlers from around the globe came to grips with the fact that the World Women’s Championship had been cancelled — just two days before they were supposed to start play — because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Anna Hasselborg and her Swedish teammates were just arriving by plane after spending time at a training camp in Calgary, and the news was all over their phones when they landed in Prince George.

“It was almost unreal, actually,” Swedish national program coach Maria Prytz said on the phone on Friday.

“We were all here and so close and we were supposed to be on the ice practising (Friday), so this feels very sad for us and all the teams here. When we got here, we just sat together for some hours just to talk and go through everything and then make some fast decisions about how to get home.”

Team Hasselborg, the Olympic champion in 2018, was among the favourites in the field in Prince George, but instead of practising at the CN Centre on Friday, the team was back at the airport, embarking on a long journey back to Sweden.

Although everyone understood the World Curing Federation’s reasons for the cancellation — it was made on the recommendation of British Columbia’s provincial health officer — it was unfortunate that it came after all of the teams had travelled to Canada and on to a remote northern city. In hindsight, the WCF likely should have cancelled the event earlier, with knowledge that the coronavirus was spreading rapidly.

“We would have been sad anyways, but we wouldn’t have had to do the travel,” Prytz said. “This also puts us in some risks with travelling, so it would have been better to be home.

“But nobody can be blamed for this. The WCF couldn’t take a decision and they were all hoping for everything to go on until the authorities said that basically all the sporting events are going to be cancelled. There’s no one to blame here but it’s really sad.”

The other 12 teams in the event — including Canada’s Kerri Einarson of Gimli, Man., — were in the same boat as Team Sweden, though not all of them were able to arrange travel as easily on Friday.

“There’s not that many flights from Prince George so not everybody has been able to re-book flights,” Prytz said. “For all the European teams, the travel agencies were closed when we got the notice (Thursday). We were able to reschedule our team’s travels for (Friday) but some teams will have to leave Saturday or Sunday.”

With Friday’s announcement that the final two events on the Grand Slam of Curling calendar — the Players Championship in Toronto and the Champions Cup in Olds, Alta. — have been cancelled, the curling season is now officially over.

‘We’re not gonna play anything more,” Prytz said. “Of course they are all sad but it’s all so fresh right now. It’s a lot of things to take in. In a couple of days everything will be much more clear.

“The main thing is that everybody’s healthy and hopefully, we’ll stay that way.”