SHAKING UP THE CURLING WORLD
Elite 10 offers a first look at some new teams, four years ahead of the Olympics
It’s the first big event of the Olympic quadrennial and the first chance for most people to get a good look at the new configurations of curling teams across the nation.
The Grand Slam of Curling ’s Elite 10 event will be played Wednesday to Sunday in Chatham-Kent, Ont., (games will be shown on Sportsnet starting Thursday) and will feature many of the world’s best teams, who are invited based on the World Curling Tour’s Order of Merit.
For the first time there will be a women’s division added to the event, which is played using alternative match-play rules and features a $100,000 purse for each division.
“It’s a different format and it’s kind of neat,” Calgary skip Chelsea Carey said. “It was kinda fun watching it on TV and it will be even better to actually play in it. Definitely looking forward to that.”
Carey is one of those skips who has a new-look team to start the season after making it to the Olympic trials final last December before losing to Rachel Homan. Her team has three new players — third Sarah Wilkes, second Dana Ferguson and lead Heather Rogers, who is subbing in for Rachel Brown.
Also among the women’s teams with new players is the one skipped by 2018 world champion Jennifer Jones, who has replaced longtime second Jill Officer (taking a break) with Jocelyn Peterman, formerly of Carey’s team.
“Jocelyn is just such a great person,” Jones said. “She’s so easy to get along with and she has fit in amazingly well. Jill is still going to play a couple of events with us. Although Jill’s not around all the time, I still talk to her all the time so it hasn’t felt like we’ve had to be make a big adjustment.”
Tracy Fleury of Sudbury, Ont., is now curling out of Winnipeg, and Laura Walker of Edmonton also starts the season with a new team. Among the Canadian teams in the women’s event, only Homan of Ottawa and Casey Scheidegger of Lethbridge, Alta., have the same lineups.
“It’s an interesting year … the first year of the Olympic cycle is always that way,” Carey said. “Everybody has new permutations and combinations and it’s always a bit of guesswork as far as whether or not the chemistry is going to be there and all that kind ofstuff.”
On the men’s side, five of the seven Canadian teams come in with new looks, including Olympian Kevin Koe of Calgary, who has replaced third Marc Kennedy and second Brent Laing with third B.J. Neufeld and second Colton Flasch.
The new foursome already won the inaugural World Cup for Canada earlier this month in China and Koe is excited about the possibilities going forward.
“That takes a bit of pressure off us for sure, having won that event with the good field that it was,” Koe said.
“When you put a new team together, there’s a bit of pressure there. You want to do well for your new teammates and you want everyone to think it was a good decision.”
Neufeld was available after Olympic trials runner-up Mike McEwen broke up his team and joined fellow Winnipegger Reid Carruthers, throwing fourth stones.
John Epping of Toronto, Jason Gunnlaugson of Winnipeg and Glenn Howard of Penetanguishene, Ont., will debut new foursomes as well. The only teams coming in with the same lineups are those skipped by two-time defending Brier champion Brad Gushue of St. John’s and 2014 Olympian Brad Jacobs of Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.
“Koe’s team is a really intriguing one,” Carruthers said. “Koe represented us at the Olympics and to see him change two teammates, it will be interesting to see how that team does. It looks like they have some really good chemistry.”
Koe is interested in seeing how Carruthers and McEwen, both high level skips, do as a team. “They’re, on paper, one of the top teams,” Koe said.
Other teams competing in the Elite 10 this week include world champion Niklas Edin of Sweden and Scottish skips Ross Patterson and Bruce Mouat on the men’s side, along with Olympic champ Anna Hasselborg of Sweden, Nina Roth and Jamie Sinclair of the U.S., and Silvana Tirinzoni of Switzerland on the women’s side.