Silver lining
Gallant led South Korea to a curling medal and didn’t even get a ‘thank you’
REGINA — Peter Gallant sits in the stands here watching his two sons curl, one for Brad Gushue’s Team Canada and the other for Eddie (Spuds) MacKenzie’s Prince Edward Island.
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, this year he has a special status.
His real claim to fame is having coached The Garlic Girls — skip ‘Annie’ Kim Eun-jung and the other Kim girls Kyeong-ae, Seonyoung and Yeong-mi
— to a silver medal at the Pyeongchang Olympics.
He spent three years coaching the girls to one of the greatest Olympic stories ever, one that will quite likely become a major movie, yet they didn’t even extend his contract long enough for him to coach them later this month at the women’s curling championships in North Bay, Ont.
“My contract was up at the end of the Olympics,” Gallant 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 Korean (program) decided they needed to hire a full-time Olympic coach. My name came up with Brad and they kind of put it all together.”
Just prior to the Olympics, Gallant took the girls to Edmonton for a session with Kevin Martin at the Derrick Golf & Winter Club and, from there, to Camrose 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. The Koreans are pretty high on Kevin as we all are. That was good. But it was after when Kevin gave them advice on how to prepare to handle the Olympics in Vancouver in 2010. 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, said Gallant.
“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 game they’d ever seen. It was fabulous. It was exciting to see them perform the way they can for a series of games.”
Gallant said it’s impossible to explain what happened to the team after they won an Olympic medal on home soil.
“Oh may gawd, they became superstars in Korea. Their lives have changed. They were really embraced.” Gallant said it was kind of a shame they became 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 nations for the next Olympic cycle.
Maybe, if he has success again, it’ll be one that will say thank you.
My contract was up at the end of the Olympics. They didn’t even say ‘Thank you.’ ”
Peter Gallant