For Brad Gushue rink, Sallows is more than a spare part
Albertan once again acting as the fifth for world champion rink
Meet Tom Sallows of the Brad Gushue curling team. He’s the guy no one knows.
No one in Newfoundland and Labrador, at least. Sallows is the Maytag repairman, the fifth man on Team Gushue. He may as well be in witness protection.
But in curling circles, Sallows has a pretty good name, and not just because he’s the spare on the reigning Brier and world championship team, the same one that’s here in Ottawa trying to nab an Olympic berth from the Roar of the Rings curling trials.
A Grande Prairie, Alta., native, Sallows sits and waits with the other extras and coaches along the tables at the rear of the curling rink at Canadian Tire Centre, knowing there’s little or no chance — save for a limb hanging off — of him getting into a game for one of the four rock-slingers on Team Gushue.
But he’s there just in a case, a human, broom-carrying insurance policy.
“Hey, I embrace it,” Sallows said.
Of course, Sallows isn’t just sitting there every game in la-la land, perched next to coach Jules Owchar, a curling savant who himself looks as if he’s ready to nod off any minute. Rather, Sallows, 33, makes the most of it, doing a bit of scouting, looking for rock tendencies, keeping an eye to the ice for any changes, etc. etc.
This is Sallows’ second year on Team Gushue, thanks to a friendship with Gushue lead and fellow Albertan Geoff Walker. It’s a friendship that goes back when they were kids curling together.
But if you know Gushue, he’s not going to bring in someone just because he’s knows a guy who knows a guy.
Sallows skipped a junior team with Walker, Charley Thomas and Kyle Reynolds that finished runner-up in the Alberta provincials four years running.
Sallows aged out, Thomas
took over throwing last rocks and won two straight Canadian and world junior titles.
“I guess I was the problem,” he laughs.
At the men’s level, Sallows played in three Alberta provincials, making a run in 2011 when the team, skipped by Walker, lost to Kevin Martin in the semifinals.
“After 2011, Geoff was called to the big leagues (he joined Team Gushue in 2012) and that was pretty much it for me,” Sallows says.
“I played one year with Dave Nedohin, and we didn’t have the best year, so I took a little bit of a step back, but I still played in some spiels and playdowns.
“Finally, I thought I was done, when Pat Simmons and John Morris called.”
Simmons and Morris were looking for a fifth for their new team, and Sallows accepted. It was a good move, as they won the 2015 Brier.
“That got me back into this role, which has fit very nice with my life,” he said. “Geoff and I are friends, (but) I don’t think that was the sole reason why I was brought on board. I think Brad
liked the fact I have experience in this role.”
“I think Brad liked the fact I have experience in this role.”
Sallows wasn’t always a curler. Like Walker, he played hockey growing up just outside Grande Prairie, and was a bit of a latecomer to curling, at age 15.
His parents were curlers — his father was an icemaker — along with his sister. Cary-anne Mctaggart-sallows is the third on Casey Scheidegger’s Alberta team here at the Trials.
“I grew up around the curling clubs,” he said. “I was still playing hockey when I played in a fun curling league with my sister and my parents, and I guess I realized there was a little bit of talent there.
“I was getting a bit sick of hockey for some reason, and curling was looking pretty good.
Besides, he adds with a wink, “there were some good looking girls in curling, so …”
Away from the rink, Sallows may be more Newfoundland and Labrador than Gushue, who hails from Mount Pearl, and Labrador City’s Nichols.
He owns and operates Mountain Man Adventures, a hunting and fishing guide service he runs out of Grande Prairie, taking clients from all over on hunts for moose, black bear, elk and deer.
He’ll go as far north as the Yukon, but primarily stays south of Grande Prairie.
“I grew up living off wild meat, and that goes back to my parents and grandparents,” he said. “I’ve always hunted and fished, just loved being in the outdoors, camping, hunting, finishing, whatever.
“It’s a true passion of mine, and I’m pretty lucky to have built a business around it.”
“Geoff (Walker) and I are friends, (but) I don’t think
that was the sole reason why I was brought on board. I think Brad liked the fact I have experience in this role.”
Tom Sallows
You can count two former Olympic medal winners and current world champions among those who were nodding in agreement after this week’s big announcement that the International Olympic Committee was barring Russia’s Olympic team from the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Curlers Brad Gushue and Mark Nichols of St. John’s concur 100 per cent with the IOC and the unprecedented punishment following a lengthy investigation into Russia’s systematic doping.
Russian government officials will be forbidden from attending the Pyeongchang Games, and the country’s flag will not be displayed at the opening ceremony and nor will its anthem be played.
The door is open to some Russians to compete as neutral athletes, but it’s unclear if Russian president Vladimir Putin will allow that happen.
Competing at the Canadian Olympic Curling Trials in Ottawa, Nichols said, “Based on the research and everything that’s been done to look into this, it’s the right step.
“You have tons of athletes out there training so hard, and here it’s crazy to think what they (the Russian Olympic team) went through to try and maximize results.
“You know what, as dramatic and extreme as the ban is, it’s the right one.”
Some high-profile former Canadian athletes, among them hockey player Hayley Wickenheiser and cross-country skier Beckie Scott, also agreed with the decision.
“The Canadian team,” said Canadian Olympic Committee president Tricia Smith, “will have the confidence that they’re competing on a level playing field.”
Gushue also agreed with the decision, noting it’s the right move, particularly given the depths and the level of the Russian cheating.
“You have to take a hard stance,” said Gushue. “Geez, we’ve been tested four times this fall, and for a whole country to be bypassing that and being able to, frankly, cheat is not right.”
Gushue and Nichols were part of the 2005 Torino Winter Olympics gold-medal curling team, and last spring won the world curling championship.
As a result, Gushue, Nichols, Brett Gallant and Geoff Walker are in the testing pool of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports, which conducts drug testing of Canadian athletes.
Since the fall, the curling team has been given drug tests four different times.
The latest came last Friday here in Ottawa. And that was just a week after a CCES official showed up at the St. John’s Curling Club demanding a test.
“He just arrived at practice,” Gushue said. “We have to let them (at CCES) know of our whereabouts … when and where we practice, when we travel, where we’re going to be, when we go on vacation.
“We have to let them know where we are going to be each day.
“They tested us all at the (curling) club, and again when we came up here … all within a week. That’s in addition to two other tests earlier in the fall.
“So yes, it’s the right move (banning Russia), and hopefully things will get cleaned up.”
“We’ve been (drug) tested four times this fall, and for a whole country to be bypassing that and being able to, frankly, cheat is not right.”
Brad Gushue