KOE RINK TAKES ON THE WORLD
Men’s curling unfolds in Switzerland
CALGARY In the moments after her team fell short of the podium at the women’s world curling championship last week, Canadian skip Chelsea Carey admitted that wearing her country’s colours for the first time hadn’t always been a smooth ride.
There are obstacles a team simply can’t plan for at an international curling competition if they’ve never played in one before. Experience really does count at world championships.
When Kevin Koe’s Calgarybased rink takes the ice this week at the men’s world championship in Basel, Switzerland, experience shouldn’t be an issue.
“It’s new for this team, but everyone has been to a couple worlds before,” Koe said this week from The Glencoe Club in Calgary. “No one is unfamiliar with this situation and kind of the pressure of the worlds, so I don’t think we have to talk about it too much. We just talk about what we have to do on the ice.”
When this iteration of the Koe rink came together two years ago, it was with the idea of winning major championships together. It wouldn’t be a stretch to describe them as a super team, really.
Koe was coming off a win at the Brier, but left his rink to join forces with second Marc Kennedy and Ben Hebert, both of whom had won Olympic gold with Kevin Martin. Brent Laing came over from Glenn Howard’s rink, too, bringing two world championships along with him.
Together, they’ve been in pretty much every situation that a curler is likely to find himself in, so no, they’re not feeling especially overwhelmed by the challenge in front of them.
“I don’t think we’re shy on confidence right now,” Hebert said. “We’ve never been a team that lacked confidence, we’ve had a lot of success. When we put the team together ... it’s tough not to be confident in what you’ve done in the past.”
The benefits of all that experience go well beyond what fans see out on the ice. Yes, it helps that they’ve all had to hit big shots in big moments before, but that’s only part of it.
Travelling overseas means the team will be eating at unfamiliar restaurants and trying to adapt quickly to a new city and culture. It might not be as tough as it was for Koe when he travelled to China for his last world championship in 2014, but there are still adjustments to be made.
Fortunately, they’ve got Laing, who happened to win gold the last time the world championship was held in Basel in 2012.
“We just ask Brent,” Koe said. “It’s ‘You’ve been there, you’ve stayed at the hotel. Is it going to be an issue?’ That’s all you want to know.
“This will be my third worlds and they’ve all been overseas. I think just being overseas ... can throw teams for a loop.”
Fortunately, the team shouldn’t have many concerns when it comes to the actual curling.
Switzerland is widely considered to have some of the best curling ice in the world and the Canadians are well-acquainted with the teams most likely to be standing in the way of their march toward a finish atop the podium.
The Koe team plays at pretty much every Grand Slam event, so they’ve curled against Norway’s Thomas Ulsrud, Sweden’s Niklas Edin and Switzerland’s Sven Michel on multiple occasions.
There won’t be any surprises and after outlasting debatably the deepest field in Brier history a couple weeks ago, Koe’s rink has to be considered the favourite to emerge with gold.
They’ve got enough experience to know it’s never that straightforward, though.
“Whenever you win the Brier, Canada is always expected to do pretty well and it kind of leaves a sour taste if you go to worlds and don’t win it,” Koe said. “But it’s not as easy as it used to be. There’s some good teams out there and they train all year just for these events.
“That said, I think we’ve had an unbelievable year.”