A roller-coaster year for Canadian curlers
It was a year like no other in the world of curling, with events played in bubbles in the early part of 2021 and an eventual return to something that looked more like normal, and finally an outright cancellation of an important event, all under the dark cloud of a persistent threat from COVID -19.
Ask any Canadian curler to look back at 2021 and they'll be plagued by memories of spending weeks on end in Calgary hotel rooms, without their families or social contact, in order to compete last winter and spring at Canada Olympic Park.
Eventually those memories would give way to something much more positive, with the Olympic curling trials being successfully staged in front of fans in Saskatoon in November, but it was never quite the same as it was in the before times, with players undergoing regular coronavirus testing and being asked to avoid outside contacts as much as possible.
And before the year was over, the mixed doubles Olympic trials were cancelled just days before they were scheduled to begin in Portage La Prairie, Man., after a rampant outbreak of the new Omicron variant swept the nation.
“If you asked anyone who was in that bubble, that was an event we would never want to replicate,” said John Morris, who competed in the Brier, a couple Grand Slam events and the mixed doubles nationals in the bubble.
“We were happy to be curling, but the bubble experience was hopefully a one and only. You can get in a dark place in there, not being around family, and missing one of the main parts of the game, which is being able to socialize with other teams. That was one of the toughest parts of that bubble.”
Brad Gushue, who curls out of St. John's, N.L., started 2021 isolated on the Rock, with no real opportunities to play the game at an elite level. Eventually he got into the bubble for a good three months of events and capped his year by winning the Olympic curling trials and booking a ticket to Beijing for the 2022 Olympic Winter Games.
“I've loved it and I've hated it,” Gushue said. “I loved the fact that we had the opportunity to curl in the bubble, but my experience of being away from my family for 3½ months, to be honest, made me hate curling for about a month after I got back. I didn't want to talk about it, I didn't want to think about it. It took me away from my family for such a long period of time.
“The fact that we were able to play in front of fans again in Saskatoon brought back that love, that excitement. It's been a roller-coaster to be honest. It went from high, to very low, to high again. That's the kind of thing you've got to expect, I guess, in a pandemic. We've just got to roll with it right now.”
The big winners of the year were Kerri Einarson (women's national champion), Brendan Bottcher (men's national champion), Einarson and Gushue (mixed doubles champs) and Gushue and Jennifer Jones (Olympic trials champs).
The Bottcher team didn't even make it to the end of the year without a breakup, as third Darren Moulding was turfed in a controversial move that came just after the Olympic trials. Moulding resurfaced with the James Grattan team out of New Brunswick, but Bottcher hasn't filled the open vice-skip spot on his team yet.
Canada did not fare well on the international stage, finishing sixth in women's play, fifth in men's play and fourth in mixed doubles at the world championships. It led to concerns over the country's place in the world curling hierarchy.
“Expectations shouldn't be as high for Canada as what they were in the past, to be quite honest,” Gushue said at the Olympic trials. “That doesn't mean we shouldn't be medal favourites going into the Olympics, just not overwhelming gold-medal favourites.
“Curling fans understand that, but general fans probably don't because they don't know what Bruce Mouat (of Scotland) has done over the last 18 months or what Niklas Edin (of Sweden) has done over the last four years. Hopefully, the fans who are tuning in for the first time in four years at the Olympics know that we're good, but we're not as dominant as we were.”
Everyone wants to see Canada do well at international events, particularly the Olympics. Canada (Kevin Koe) finished fourth in men's play in 2018 in South Korea, sixth in women's play (Rachel Homan) and won gold in mixed doubles (Morris and Kaitlyn Lawes).
Some people, including Gushue, have suggested Canada should move its Olympic trials from late November/early December of the Olympic season, to April of the previous season, in order to give the winners more time to prepare as Team Canada.
The last-minute cancellation of the mixed doubles trials added fuel to that fire.
“I think we can avoid this situation if we do things earlier,” said Colin Hodgson, who curls with the Mike Mcewen team out of Winnipeg and with Chelsea Carey in mixed doubles.
“As curlers, in our country, we've been qualifying teams too close to the Olympics and this (cancellation) exposes that. There's a lot of valid reasons for qualifying earlier and one of them is it gives you more time to reschedule events and rejig things in a different way.”
Morris doesn't agree. At least, he thinks the timing of the trials is the least of Canada's worries.
“It should be exactly how it has been,” said Morris, who played second with Koe in men's play and was to play with Homan at the mixed doubles Olympic.
“Historically, in Canada, we've had great Olympians and been very successful. It's not the timing of the Olympic trials that's why Canada is finding it harder to win gold medals. It's because we're falling behind some of these other countries in our progression. These other countries have full-time athletes and they've really made some progressive changes over the last decade. In Canada, we've maybe rested on our laurels and rested on the fact that we have a lot of depth in our men's and women's teams. That's what needs to be addressed.”
That was an event we would never want to replicate. We were happy to be curling, but the bubble experience was hopefully a one and only.