Young Curlers have game

Teams look to youth to add energy to the sport

Adam Daifallah

National Post

Tuesday, February 17, 2004

Last week's Karcher Canadian Junior Curling Championships highlighted the amazing abilities of the young curlers working their way up Canada's junior ranks. These kids can play.

And while some in the sport were expressing concern a few years ago that the quantity and quality of junior play was dwindling, there is now a sense of excitement about the game's future. Coaching is better, competition is getting tougher and the players are in better physical condition.

Sunday's exciting Canadian junior men's final at the packed Juan de Fuca Recreation Centre in Victoria came down to last rock, when New Brunswick's 17-year-old sensation Ryan Sherrard beat Newfoundland's Matthew Blandford.

Sherrard jumped out in front 5-2 after five ends, but Blandford fought his way back, forcing Sherrard to make a hit for the win and New Brunswick's first junior title in more than 15 years.

"I came down just staring at that rock. A wide open hit for the win. It's what you dream about. I looked for my water bottle but it wasn't there so I just took a couple of deep breaths and let it go," Sherrard said in a statement from the Canadian Curling Association.

On the women's side, Nova Scotia's Jill Mouzar defeated Marie-Christine Cantin of Quebec 6-3 in Saturday's final. Mouzar stole points in the seventh, eighth and ninth ends, allowing the bluenosers to cruise to an easy victory by running Quebec out of rocks in the 10th.

The victory is an amazing reversal of fortunes for Mouzar, who in 2001 skipped Nova Scotia to a gloomy 1-11 record at the nationals.

Both teams will represent Canada at the world juniors, to be played March 20-28 in Trois-Rivieres, Que.

And while some might attribute it to coincidence, the junior results might show increasingly strong junior talent coming from the Atlantic provinces. Two of the three playoff teams on both the men's and women's sides hailed from down East.

Young male curlers are also making an impact on this year's cashspiel circuit. This year's World Curling Tour (WCT) money list has several younger teams in the Top 20.

All four players on Pat Simmons' sixth-place rink from Saskatoon, John Morris's eighth- place team from Calgary and Jamie Koe's 14th-place Calgary rink are under age 30. Then there's Jamie King's 11th-place team from Edmonton, whose oldest player is 33.

Some of the more experienced skips have taken on young players, too. Winnipeg's Vic Peters has 25-year-old Ryan Fry playing vice, while Wayne Middaugh's second, Joe Frans, is 28. Kevin Martin's second, Carter Rycroft is 25, and Randy Ferbey's second, Scott Pfeifer, is 27. And the list goes on.

"In the past, veteran teams were reluctant to take on younger players because they didn't want to waste their time teaching. Now they are looking to youth to add energy, fitness, etc. to the game, which is a great sign and has a lot to do with the Olympics," said Chad McMullan, the executive director of the World Curling Tour. "It's not beer-gut curling any more, teams are hitting the gym."

But young men are the fortunate ones. Many junior curlers have great difficulty making the transition to adult play.

"The sport is losing athletes once they graduate from the junior ranks.

"They're coming from a history of success to taking their lumps in the men's game, which is both mentally and financially difficult to the point where they are leaving the sport," McMullan said.

Last May, the World Curling Players' Association (WCPA) launched a youth initiative for WCT competitors. It allows teams with an average age of 29 years or younger, and with three of four players under 29, to have WCPA fees waived for the year, saving them hundreds of dollars.

The initiative also involves setting up partnerships with provincial curling tours, thus creating a tiered stepping-stone system for teams.

Young squads will start out on a provincial circuit, then move to the WCT and eventually on to the Grand Slam series. It's sort of modelled after golf's minitours.

Last month, the WCT and the Ontario Curling Tour (OCT) announced a youth initiative partnership.

OCT event winnings will be included in the WCPA rankings system, and the OCT Championship winner will get a berth in a Grand Slam event.

With the talent coming up in the junior ranks, and a variety of youth-directed initiatives, the future of curling is looking bright.