Kennedy ready to take a break after Humpty’s Champions Cup
Olympic curler finishing up four-year run with Koe rink at Grand Slam event
The decision to step away from the game of curling was natural for Marc Kennedy, something he discussed with his wife Nicole and wrestled with for months, ultimately deciding on healing his aching hips and spending more time with his family.
This week’s Humpty’s Champions Cup — the finale of the 2017-18 Pinty ’s Grand Slam of Curling season — is it. This week is his final competition with Kevin Koe’s rink, his team for the past four seasons.
And he knows the emotions of it all will hit him at some point. He’s just not sure when.
“Everybody’s a little different,” the 36-year-old St. Albert native said the other day, en route to picking up his daughters from school. “It worries me a bit about myself, that I don’t feel emotions until after the fact. I’ve won Briers and won Olympic trials before, and even after we win, I’m quite subdued. Sometimes it doesn’t hit me until a couple hours later, and I’ll be like, ‘Holy (crap), we just won.’
“I’m still in the methodical process of trying to win games … I might find myself getting emotional in my truck by myself a week later.”
For now, he’ll save the Kleenex boxes for Nicole (“My wife’s going to be crying the whole week”), their daughters, nine-year-old Aubrey and seven-year-old Brechan, and Ben Hebert, his longtime teammate and lead for Koe’s team.
“I love curling with Marc,” Hebert said. “He’s been my teammate for 12 years. I’ve been with Marc longer than anybody including my wife. I mean ... it’s tough. I feel like we’re breaking up a bit.”
It’s truly the end of an era as Hebert and Kennedy have been teammates since the 2006-07 season. With skip Kevin Martin and third John Morris, they won an Olympic gold medal in Vancouver, a pair of world championship medals (gold in 2008 and silver in 2009) and were back-to-back Tim Hortons Brier champions in 2008 and 2009.
This year’s news comes at the end of a four-year cycle which has seen the duo, Koe and second Brent Laing capture gold at the World Curling Championships in 2016, the 2016 Brier and gold at the Canadian Olympic Curling Trials.
“He’s a great friend and an amazing curler — one of the best ever,” Hebert said. “He’s got a hall of fame resume. I still think he’s in his prime, and he can even get better, which is sad to see. But he wanted to take some time with his injury and spend some time with his family, and I understand that.
“I tried to talk him out of it, just because of how good he is ... his mind was made up, but I don’t think he’s going to be done forever.”
The Koe rink finished a disappointing fourth at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Later, the team learned Laing would be departing for John Epping ’s new rink while B.J. Neufeld and Colton Flasch will replace Kennedy and Laing at second and third, respectively.
It’s why the group wants to go out with a bang this weekend at Calgary in front of their friends, family, sponsors and fans.
“We’ve done our best to bury it and be professionals,” Hebert said. “We committed to each other for four years, and that four years doesn’t end until this tournament is over ... this weekend is all about Brent and Marc — our little farewell tour.”
Flasch, the skip for the Saskatoon-based team of Kevin and Dan Marsh and Dallan Muyres, and Neufeld, the third from Mike McEwen’s Winnipeg-based squad, will compete in Calgary this weekend.
“I hope we get to play them and kick their (butt) one last time,” Hebert said with a chuckle.
The Champions Cup will mark the end of a long, tough year for the team.
To qualify, a team must win one of 14 specific events on the curling calendar or qualify through the World Curling Tour. Koe’s team was a shoo-in after capturing the Players’ Championship on April 15, the Olympic trials and a World Curling Tour tournament in Penticton, B.C. Last year, the foursome was in the 2017 Humpty’s Champions Cup final, ultimately losing to Brad Jacobs.
“It’s a tough one to get into,” Hebert said of the Champions Cup. “All the Grand Slams are important — it’s where you test your ability against all the top teams. You never really get any soft teams ... they’re the hardest events to win, in my opinion.”
The round robin-style bonspiel runs at WinSport Arena through Sunday, featuring 15 men’s and 15 women’s teams competing for a combined $250,000 purse.
As for Kennedy, who made the decision to step away from the sport just three days after the team returned home from Olympics, it might not be the last time he steps onto a sheet of ice.
“I didn’t want to say ‘retirement’ and then in two years really feel like I wanted to come back,” Kennedy said. “... I’m looking forward to finishing it off right with the guys and then moving on to different things.”