All in the family
Partners off ice are suddenly teammates with chance to represent Canada at Games
Until now, mixed doubles curling has drawn little more than yawns and the occasional curious look from coast to coast.
But the sport’s inaugural Olympic trials are about to change all that.
Don’t be surprised if this quickly becomes the most entertaining Canadian sporting event that hardly anybody currently knows anything about.
From Jan. 2-7 in Portage la Prairie, Man., husbands will argue calls with wives, boyfriends with girlfriends, clashing with longtime teammates and friends, all under the enormous pressure that comes with an Olympic berth on the line.
If that wasn’t enough, the sport is so new and untested, even the competitors struggle with the rules.
So good luck predicting which eight of the 18 teams survive to play off on the weekend.
“It’s completely wide open,” Winnipegger-turned-Calgarian Chelsea Carey told Postmedia. “When you look at a traditional, four-person event you can usually predict who might be in the playoffs and who the favourites are. But because it’s so new and we’ve all played so little of it, there’s no predicting who’ll come out on top.”
Carey has been forced to regroup quickly after losing to Rachel Homan in the final of the Olympic women’s trials in Ottawa, barely three weeks ago.
“The second chance makes that a lot easier,” Carey said.
Leftover feelings from that combination heartbreaker and meat grinder add an interesting dynamic to the mixed doubles event.
So does the player shuffle that followed the men’s and women’s trials, as it became clear who was already going to PyeongChang and who had to try to squeeze in through the mixed doubles door.
Five-time Canadian champ and 2014 Olympic gold medallist Jennifer Jones, for example, recruited Mark Nichols, Brad Gushue’s third, to replace her husband, Brett Laing, as Laing is part of Kevin Koe’s Olympic-bound team.
“I don’t envy that,” Carey said, comfortable in the knowledge she’ll team up with Colin Hodgson of Winnipeg, her mixed doubles partner for three years. “Figuring out a new teammate at this point wouldn’t be the easiest thing in the world. At the same time, none of us have played a lot of mixed doubles. So it’s less of an issue in a way.”
Most teams in this week’s trials have played in just one mixed doubles event this season.
Carey says she and Hodgson have played in just five or six over the last three years.
But the most interesting dynamics in Portage la Prairie involve personal relationships.
A handful of teams are made up of spouses or romantic partners, including top seeds Jocelyn Peterman of Calgary and Brett Gallant of St. John’s, Kim and Wayne Tuck of Strathroy, Ont., and Winnipeg ’s Mike and Dawn McEwen.
Mike McEwen, who like Carey lost a heart-wrenching final at the regular trials, says while he’s over that, he’s not sure how the spousal dynamic will play out.
“It’s going to be intense, like any competition that leads to the Olympics,” McEwen said. “It’d be fair to say there will be different dynamics out there. I mean, you don’t treat your wife like you treat one of the boys on the team. Sometimes you say things to the people closest to you, maybe you’re a little bit rougher around the edges than you are to your normal teammate.
“I just have to behave myself, that’s all.”
McEwen doesn’t see it as an advantage, although opposing skip Reid Carruthers isn’t so sure.
“They can make a lot of shots and they probably have the best chemistry of everyone,” Carruthers said.
We’ll give McEwen’s wife the last say on that.
“The dynamic is completely different than with one of the friends you play with on tour,” Dawn McEwen said. “You’re maybe a bit more vulnerable. When things are going good it’s super-fun, and when things aren’t going well it’s a little more frustrating with your husband, sometimes.
“But it’s a huge advantage for me, personally, because I have a huge comfort level with Mike.”
Dawn McEwen has the added challenge of going against her longtime teammates on the famed Jones team, as all four go after a second trip to the Olympics, with different partners.
“It’s going to be just as intense as the other trials,” she said. “Especially when you get down to the nitty-gritty of it. There are so many teams that could easily win.”
The payoff, of course, would be enormous. History in the making, as the sport makes its Olympic debut.
“Should I be able to do that with my spouse, I can’t imagine there would be much in sport better than that,” Mike McEwen said. “That would be pretty crazy. A pretty cool story, should we be able to write that.”
“And from the perspective of our daughter, too,” Dawn added. “How amazing is that to say, ‘My mom and dad went to the Olympics together,’ and you have a chance to win an Olympic medal? It’d be pretty unreal.”