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A day after starring in the semifinals of the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling National last month in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., Brendan Bottcher was right back in Edmonton on the campus of the University of Alberta hitting the books for eight hours.

Such is the life for the 22-year-old Bottcher as he looks to finish his chemical engineering degree while also skipping one of the hottest teams rising up the ranks of the World Curling Tour.

Bottcher admitted it’s not easy balancing the student-athlete lifestyle but he enjoys every minute of it.

“There are a lot of nights staying up later than I’d like to,” he said. “When we’re in the city, I’m day in and day out at the university trying to get everything done. … I have a fairly big course load here but it’s good, I love both. I love the time I spend at the university and I love the time I spend curling.”

“I just need to really prioritize,” Bottcher added. “When I’m at a Grand Slam or when I’m curling I need to be all there and then when I’m back at home and at university I need to try and really refocus.”

At the start of the year, Bottcher wasn’t even sure if he would play in any Grand Slam tournaments this season but now his team is preparing for another major, the Canadian Open, running Dec. 9-14 in Yorkton, Sask. The timing was a bit of a concern at first for Bottcher because it falls right in the middle of final exams and required some shuffling around.

“As soon as we got the invite we started making arrangements to see if we could make that happen,” Bottcher said. “I’m thrilled we are able to be a part.”

Bottcher’s high level of dedication has already resulted in a decorated CV filled with curling accomplishments. He skipped Canada to gold at the World Junior Curling Championships in March 2012 and just one week later guided his Alberta Golden Bears team to the Canadian Interuniversity Sport title. Bottcher was named the flag bearer for Canada at the opening ceremonies of the 2013 Winter Universiade in Trentino, Italy, and his team came home with the bronze medal.

Bottcher and his Alberta teammates — third Mick Lizmore, second Bradley Thiessen and lead Karrick Martin — moved up to the men’s ranks for 2012-13 and last season saw them compete in two Grand Slam events, the Canadian Open and the National. The rink didn’t get the results they were looking for during the year and brought in experienced curler Tom Appelman to replace Lizmore at third.

“Last year we were really close but we were just missing, I can’t even put my finger on what we were missing, we just didn’t quite have it,” Bottcher said. “I think more than anything else just the dynamic (Appelman) brings to our group just pulls the rest of us together. He’s been making a ton of shots so I really have nothing bad to say at all. He’s done a great job.”

Team Bottcher won the HDF Insurance Shoot-Out event to kick off the season in September and have been quite active on the tour currently sitting sixth overall on the WCT money list with $34,750 in earnings (which will surely help pay off some of Bottcher’s tuition and books).

While they had been flying under the radar these past few seasons, it was last month at the National where they stunned the heavyweights of the curling world with a 4-1 record in the round robin and reached the semifinals for the first time at a major tournament that morphed them into a serious contender.

“To come out there and play well against a whole bunch of the teams in our national team program and to just sort of prove that we deserve to be there more than anything else, that was awesome for us,” Bottcher said. “I think we’ve got a lot of momentum out of that.”

Bottcher didn’t have an easy road at the National either. The team defeated Brad Gushue, fresh off of winning the Masters Grand Slam title, and Brier champion Kevin Koe during the round robin. Bottcher dispatched John Morris and his Brier-bound Team Canada squad in the quarterfinals before falling to Olympic gold medallist Brad Jacobs.

“It was our first real opportunity this year to see how we stack up against those teams and those are the teams that we’re going to have beat come playdown time,” Bottcher said. “It was nice to get a leg-up and see what we’re doing over here is not that far off from where we need to be.”

Bottcher said the team didn’t alter their routine at all and credits sticking with what they had been doing all year long for their breakout performance.

“It’s not about trying to come up with something new or special, we just need to play our regular way,” he explained. “Our regular way was working really well against some of those top teams. The key I think for us was just being relaxed and being calm and just playing the same sort of shots we’ve been playing on a regular weekend.”