Mixed doubles curling on fast track to Olympics
OSHAWA, Ont. — Lisa Weagle was stealing the show at the Oshawa Curling Club on Tuesday afternoon.
No, it wasn’t because the lead for Team Rachel Homan was putting up tricky guards or making her trademarked tick shots. Rather it was because the Ottawa native was making those gotta-see-it game-winners and clutch takeouts to help power her partnership with Toronto’s John Epping into the final of the Wall Grain Mixed Doubles Classic.
Not bad for a first-timer as Weagle hadn’t played mixed doubles competitively before. Fresh off of winning the National with Team Homan on Sunday, their fifth title already this season, Weagle was well aware she didn’t have to win every tournament this year.
“It’s always good when you qualify and make the final,” she said with a smile. “Playing mixed doubles or regular curling is no different. We’re all competitive so it was nice to be in this position for a first time trying it. I didn’t even know the rules when I came in here. I really enjoyed it. I think I’ll keep playing.”
Her sharpshooting abilities were wowing the fans and her fellow curlers.
“She is on fire,” skip Chelsea Carey said. “She’s making everything. It’s crazy. She’s just rolling right through a big win in the final of the Slam right through the mixed doubles. There’s no stopping her.”
The 411 on Mixed Doubles Curling: All you need to know about the rules
Making the band
The Oshawa event featured an all-Canadian lineup with some traditional mixed doubles teams such as reigning Canadian champions Kalynn Park and Charley Thomas as well as 2014 winners Kim and Wayne Tuck Jr. However, with the National wrapping up just two blocks away at the General Motors Centre, the 20-team field was dominated by some elite combinations such as first-timers Epping and Weagle, who was initially hesitant to compete but took to the ice at the Oshawa Curling Club immediately after winning the National down the road.
“John asked me and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to play at all,” Weagle said. “Then he asked me again and I thought, ‘well why not try it?’ Since it was in Oshawa right after the Slam it seemed like a good time to at least see if I liked it and if I was any good at it. So I think we might play again.”
Other teams weren’t in such a last-minute rush to come together. In the case of Carey and her partner Colin Hodgson, who plays lead for Winnipeg’s Team Reid Carruthers, it had been brewing since the summer and they already had one event under their belt as they competed at a mixed doubles event in Portage la Prairie, Man.
“We went to that Hollywood event, Colin and I were down there this summer, and Jamie Sinclair was there with us from the U.S. team and she suggested at some point, ‘So I’m just saying, mixed doubles. This should be a thing,’” Carey said. “We actually hadn’t even thought about it, which is amazing really because he’s one of my best friends. When she said it we kind of looked at each other and went, ‘Huh, yeah, that maybe should be what happens,’ and we kind of went from there.”
“Chelsea is my best friend so we’ve known each other for a few years now,” Hodgson added. “It’s pretty unfortunate that the same week I moved to Winnipeg she moved to Alberta so we decided we have to put a mixed doubles team together and find some reasons to hang out together again.”
In the case of Mike and Dawn McEwen from Winnipeg, they didn’t really have a choice in who they were playing with, although the husband-wife pairing has some distinct advantages.
“On some of these teams the players live in different cities, different provinces, but I know how she throws,” Mike McEwen said. “It’s not like we had to have a whole bunch of practices before we got here and for me to figure out how she throws because we go to our home club and I’ve held the broom for her many times and vice versa. That’s a nice little advantage for living in the same city and being forced to go throw rocks because we’re carrying Vienna with us to the end of the curling club and putting her at the end of the ice so sometimes we’re forced to practice together. It’s a nice little advantage getting used to how we throw.”
Perhaps it was a coincidence the Weagle/Epping, Carey/Hodgson and McEwen/McEwen lineups all feature skip/lead combinations and all three made it to the semifinals along with Edmonton skip Brendan Bottcher playing with Team Val Sweeting second Dana Ferguson.
“We’re the exception that the girl is the skip and it’s mostly the men who are the skip but I think there’s something to be said for that because you have one person who sweeping is what they own, that’s their skills set, it’s what they’re very good at, what they do all the time and what they practice and the other person where the strategy and the ice-reading kind of thing is their forte,” Carey said. “That mix, when you only have two players, you need to be pretty specific about the kind of skill sets. If you have both of the same one it might be a little bit tricky. It seems to work well in that you have complementary skill sets that kind of cover all your bases.”
0 to 100 real quick
While the World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship has been held annually since 2008, the sport has mostly flown under-the-radar. That is until this year when it was announced as a full-fledged Olympic event set to debut immediately at the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea.
That sent mixed doubles on a fast track with Canada needing to step up its game in hopes of qualifying. Canada has medalled only once at the worlds — a bronze in 2009 — with Hungary being the current powerhouse having captured gold twice in the past three years. Even though Canada swept the top of the podium in curling at the 2014 Winter Olympics there’s no guarantee the nation, ranked sixth overall in mixed doubles, will qualify with just seven spots up for grabs in the eight-team field (South Korea is guaranteed a berth as the host nation).
Players like Carey and Hodgson see the opportunity as their chance to make it to the Olympics with the sport on a light-speed trajectory as the top curlers are scrambling to get involved.
“It’s gone from zero to 100 already and it’s nowhere near done,” Carey said. “Once it gets on-air at the Olympics and the general public starts to see it and it’s very exciting to watch on TV because you see huge ends all the time. It’s all offence, there’s no defending in it, so it would be a lot of fun and I imagine it’ll rocket in popularity once it’s actually on TV at the Olympics. With the teams and players this year all of a sudden everyone is clamouring to find themselves a teammate and get into these events because of the Olympic potential and all of that kind of stuff. It’s definitely a really exciting time to be involved.”
“It’s really exciting and then there’s two chances to get to the Olympics so any time you have a double chance to try and go to the Olympics is incredible,” Hodgson said. “I’m not sure where it’s going to go from here if it’s going to be specialized and you’re going to see great players just playing mixed doubles or great players just playing traditional men’s and women’s curling but it’s definitely catching on and I think it’s going to be a big thing in the future. At least I’m hooked on it.”
Future impact
Carey/Hodgson scored three in the seventh end to reclaim the lead, but Weagle’s amazing shot in eight gave her and Epping a trey of their own to win the semifinal match 9-7. They took on the McEwens, who defeated the Ferguson/Bottcher pairing 7-5.
Team McEwen stole a point in the opening end of the final, but then came the pistol shot from Weagle in the second as she made an in-off to tap and score three for the lead.
McEwen took one in the third and then rode the steal train, swiping points in three consecutive ends, to build a 5-3 advantage. Weagle/Epping called the power play for the seventh end but they had to settle for a single as the middle part of the ice started running flat and they couldn’t drag their final stone far enough into the paint to count for a deuce.
Mike McEwen had switched to a hair brush to help fight through the fudgy conditions. It was an unusual sight as McEwen had to ditch his lucky charm corn broom immediately as he left the hack, quickly pick up the hair brush and race down the sheet to keep up with the rock. The McEwens prevailed adding another point coming home to win 6-4 and claim the Wall Grain Mixed Doubles Classic title.
Your Wall Grain Mixed Doubles Classic champions @MikeMcEwen80 & @02ginger! #curling pic.twitter.com/PXQ1gIYW1D
— Jonathan Brazeau (@JonathanBrazeau) November 17, 2015
“That was a lot of fun,” Weagle said. “John and I had a really great time and he’s such a good shooter. It was fun for me. I got to play some shots that aren’t normally in my repertoire as a lead so I really enjoyed the experience.”
Although Weagle was the star, don’t expect her to be thinking about making the switch to skip in the traditional four-person game.
“It’s a lot of pressure,” she said. “I’m definitely not gunning for Rachel’s job any time soon. I’ll let her continue to do that, it’s too stressful for me.”
On top of the prize money for winning the event, Team McEwen also earned additional funding from Curling Canada to help them on their mixed doubles journey. The impact of the victory hadn’t set in for McEwen after the game.
“I don’t even know yet,” he admitted, adding with a laugh, “It pays off the credit card pretty nicely.”
“We’ve got to sit down and see what this means going forward,” McEwen added. “We’ve had our eye on nationals in Saskatoon so a quick little flight from Winnipeg. Kind of look at the year end. There’s still a lot going on at year-end depending on how her team does at Scotties and how our team does at provincials and so forth but we’ve got our eyes on mixed doubles a little bit.
“We want to get as much prep as we can so that if our teams don’t win the four-person trials, we’ve got a lot of experience and we could step on the ice and feel pretty comfortable in an Olympic mixed doubles trials situation. It’ll definitely stay on our radar going forward and we’ll have to try and figure out how the heck we have more weekends in the curling season to do more.”
Future Slam event?
Another mixed doubles event is planned for Toronto in March building towards the Canadian mixed doubles trials in Saskatoon (March 31 to April 3) and the world championships in Karlstad, Sweden (April 16-23).
There have been some talks about playing a Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling event under the mixed doubles format and McEwen would be in favour of it.
“You know what, I wasn’t sure at first but I would love to see this kind of stuff on TV,” he said. “We’ve seen it at Continental Cup and it’s a very fun atmosphere. At the Continental Cup everybody is fooling around and just having a great time but this is an intense competition. I think there’s an opportunity to put this on TV, absolutely.”