Curling teams slide into Kingston
Winter weather causes travel woes for Manitoba squad
WINNIPEG Members of Team Manitoba better hope their week at the Brier goes a lot more smoothly than their travel experience in getting there.
Jason Gunnlaugson and his teammates started out at Winnipeg airport on Thursday at around noon, but didn’t arrive in Kingston, Ont., until 24 hours later.
Their Thursday afternoon Air Canada flights to Toronto and on to Kingston were cancelled due to weather issues in Ontario. They were able to re-book on a Westjet flight to Toronto early Friday at 5 a.m., but that was cancelled, too.
The next plan was far from ideal, but the team wound up catching a late evening flight to Thunder Bay and spending the night in the airport as all hotels were booked due to a Special Olympics event.
They then took a red-eye flight to Toronto and drove the rest of the way to Kingston.
Did they even get any sleep before arriving at Leon’s Centre?
“Yeah, a little bit,” Gunnlaugson said. “We’re used to travelling.
“It’s been fun. We used both airlines. It’s happened before and it will happen again. That’s one of the lovely things about our country. It’s pretty crazy.”
The travel woes of the Manitoba team caused some nervous moments for Curling Canada and the company that supplies provincial shirts and jackets for the teams.
The Gunnlaugson team was carrying all of the shirts from Winnipeg, as a favour to supplier Dynasty Curling.
Some teams had to wear regular shirts under their jackets for practice on Friday.
“These guys deserve a medal for what they’ve done to get to Kingston,” said Colin Hodgson, a partner in Dynasty Curling and the lead on Mike Mcewen’s wild card team in the Brier. “They made it just now. Incredible guys for doing it.”
Gunnlaugson, third Alex Forrest, lead Connor Njegovan and coach Garry Vendenberghe were all travelling from Winnipeg, while second Adam Casey flew in from Charlottetown.
They made it to Kingston at around 12:30 p.m., on Friday and had their practice time delayed until later in the afternoon.
You have to wonder if a trip like that could affect the team when the games begin Saturday.
“I wouldn’t think so,” Gunnlaugson said. “This actually just makes it more like we’re used to. We all have jobs, so trying to go in way early for an event is not something we get to do very often. Other teams have built that luxury into their lives.”
Many of the teams in the Brier had travel issues as most flights from Toronto to Kingston on Wednesday and Thursday were cancelled. That meant the curlers had to rent cars and drive.
“When we landed and we saw the weather and saw how everyone reacted … it was an overreaction,” Newfoundland and Labrador skip Brad Gushue said. “We came from getting 90 centimetres of snow a few weeks ago in St. John’s to seeing the panic over probably five centimetres. It was a little overblown, but that’s us Newfoundlanders calling the Ontarians a little soft when it comes to snow. In Newfoundland, that’s a pretty normal day.”