Morris epitome of cool when curling heat is on
Veteran skip gets a chance at Olympics along with Edmonton’s Bottcher rink
Been there, done that.
John Morris has been in this situation before and come through with flying colours. So it was no surprise to see the veteran skip confidently emerge from the 2017 Home Hardware Road to the Roar curling pre-trials with a ticket into next month’s Olympic curling qualifying tournament.
Is the Vernon, B.C., rink ready to be crowned Canada’s team?
“You betcha,” Morris said. “We’ve been ready from the start of the season. We’re just putting it all together right now.”
Morris was on the triumphant end of a 4-3 victory over Edmonton’s Brendan Bottcher in Sunday’s Section A final in Summerside, P.E.I., scoring the winner in the 10th. Bottcher missed his second shot in the end and Morris didn’t need to throw his second rock.
“What’s great is getting a championship like this, a game like this under our belts where there’s a lot of intensity, a lot on the line,” Morris told media afterward. “I learned that from Kevin (Martin), too, early on. He said the more you get to these championship games, the better. You’re going to win your fair share, you’re not going to win them all, but it’s going to provide a great experience. We’re taking that experience where we can get it. We feel we’re right where we want to be.”
Morris played the old switcheroo with third Jim Cotter, taking over skip rock duty from his third since the week wasn’t going quite the way they would have liked. It isn’t a new game-plan by Morris. Back at the 2015 Brier in Calgary, when he was guiding Team Canada, he swapped with his third Pat Simmons who assumed skip duties.
“Sometimes you have to change the batting order to spark the team and that’s exactly what we did,” Cotter said. “I just want to win, I don’t really care what position I play.”
Also on the winning rink are second Catlin Schneider and lead Tyrel Griffith.
Morris, who won Olympic gold in 2010 while playing third for Martin, made it all the way to the trials final in 2013, before losing to eventual Olympic champ Brad Jacobs of Sault Ste. Marie.
That experience won’t go forgotten.
“Preparing for the trials, we were so determined but I visualized playing my old team (Martin) in the final,” he explained.
“And we played them in the semis and it was just a lot of emotions and I think we let off the gas pedal a little bit. We weren’t at our sharpest in that final. We’re going to prepare for a grind for the entire event and we’re not going to let up one inch until the very last rock is thrown.”
Bottcher, 25, had a second chance to seal one of the two men’s spots into the December trials in Ottawa when he took on another veteran curler, Glenn Howard of Etobicoke, in the Section B final. Trailing 6-5 heading into 10 and holding the hammer, Howard saw a whole slew of Bottcher rocks in the house and needed to make the perfect shot for a tie but he missed with his last rock, giving the Edmonton rink a 9-5 win and a place in the curling trials.
Joining Thunder Bay’s Krista McCarville as the second women’s rink to qualify for Ottawa was Julie Tippin of Woodstock, Ont. Tippin bested Briane Meilleur of Winnipeg — Meilleur had lost the A-side final to McCarville — 8-3 on the B side.
Tippin took advantage of Meilleur miscues throughout the game, stealing one in the fourth and two in the fifth, making the mountain just a little too high to climb for the young Winnipeg skip.
Tippin had lost to Meilleur on Saturday in one A-side semifinal. In her first B-side test, she defeated Calgary’s Nadine Scotland 7-3, then got her revenge on Meilleur.
“We chalked it up to you have one bad game in the week,” the 34-year-old Tippin said of the loss in the semi, “and we’re lucky we have a second chance. We forgot about it quickly and we moved on and knew we had to come out and play strong after that.
“We’re so happy how we played today in both games. We needed to keep focused. We had played great throughout the week and we knew that we had to come out and play our best and focus on every shot until the end.”
As to how much this week will mean in terms of getting ready for the trials, Tippin agreed it was an invaluable experience.
“We couldn’t get a better preparation than this,” she said. “The week was so great, the teams were all so good and we had so many close games. I think it’s definitely the best way to prepare.”