KOREAN WOMEN’S CURLING SILVER NO FLUKE: COACH
Garlic Girls became ‘just like daughters’ for Canadian mentor, but he’s ready to move on
Peter Gallant sits in the stands here watching his two sons curl, one for Brad Gushue’s Team Canada and the other for Eddie “Spud” McKenzie’s Prince Edward Island rink.
Gallant was never the biggest name in the game, curling in nine Briers, including the last couple as a skip, for P.E.I. But here, this year, he has special status.
His real claim to fame is having coached the Garlic Girls — skip “Annie” Kim Eun-jung, Kim Kyeong-ae, Kim Seon-yeong and Kim Yeong-mi — to the silver medal at the Pyeongchang Olympic Winter Games.
Three years he spent coaching the women who completed one of the greatest Olympic stories, one that will quite likely become a major movie called The Garlic Girls. But his contract wasn’t extended to coach them later this month at the Ford Women’s Worlds in North Bay, Ont.
“My contract was up at the end of the Olympics,” he said. “They didn’t even say thank you.”
In 2015, son Brent accepted a trip to Korea with Gushue to help develop the men’s and women’s Olympic teams.
“The Koreans decided they needed to hire a full-time Olympic coach. My name came up with Brad and they kind of put it all together,” Peter Gallant said.
Just before the Olympics, Gallant took the Korean team to Edmonton for a session with Kevin Martin and from there to Camrose, Alta., for the Pinty’s Grand Slam Series Canadian Open, where they finished second and telegraphed their Olympic readiness.
“We went there to get advice from Kevin for the Olympics more than anything. We did get them on the ice with Kevin, too,” Gallant said. “The Koreans are pretty high on Kevin, as we all are. That was good. But (the highlight) was after when Kevin gave them advice on how to prepare to handle the Olympics.
“Kevin told them they had two choices. They can either be nervous and afraid of it or embrace it. We chose the latter.”
Canada’s Rachel Homan, obviously, chose the former.
Some think it was a fluke. It wasn’t, Gallant said.
“You look at our record against teams that were in the Olympics. We beat Rachel Homan two of the last three times they played her. We beat Silvana Tirinzoni (of Switzerland) two of the last three. We beat Eve Muirhead of Scotland seven straight. They’d just never strung anything together before Camrose and the Olympics.
“A lot of people said our playoff game against Japan was one of the best curling games they’d ever seen. It was fabulous. It was exciting to see them perform the way they can for a series of games.”
He said it’s hard to explain what happened to them after they won that Olympic medal at home.
“Oh my gawd, they became superstars in Korea. Their lives have changed. They were really embraced.”
Gallant said it was kind of a shame they got known as The Garlic Girls.
“I don’t think the name was favourable to them. But the town they come from is famous for garlic. And they grow a lot of it. It’s good garlic. You see truckloads of it going through the town. I don’t know how fond the girls really were of it.
“The girls were just like daughters to me at the end of it. They were very eager to learn. They practised hard. They were on the ice four hours a day, five days a week. And they were fun, too. And that went a long way.
“The politics over there were a little strange. The Korean federation is headed by people who don’t know the game. A lot of them are military people put there to lead it but don’t really know anything about curling.
“That’s kind of worrisome. This is a great opportunity to grow the game. If the wrong people are in place, it’s not going to work.
“I hate to say this for me, but I’m kind of glad it’s over. Three seasons is a long time. I was there for a considerable time. I was only home three weeks over an eight-month stretch there.”
Gallant is already in discussions to coach other countries for the next Olympic cycle. Maybe if he has success again, it will be for one that will say thank you.