Curlers from Canada’s Technology Triangle will be front and center when the 24th Winter Universiade opens February 18th in Harbin, China. Both the women’s and men’s representatives at the bi-annual event are from Waterloo’s Wilfrid Laurier University.The Golden Hawk curlers earned the right to represent Canada in China by winning gold at the inaugural CIS championships last March.
Hollie Nicol and Mike Anderson, both of Markham, Ont., will skip the Canadian entries at the upcoming international competition, hoping to carry the country’s tradition of excellence in the sport.
The Canadian men captured gold and the women claimed silver when curling made its Universiade debut in 2003 in Tarvisio, Italy. The sport wasn’t part of the program at the 2005 Games in Austria but returned two years later in Turin, Italy, where Canada’s women were crowned champions and the men finished fourth.
No strangers to top-level competition, all four members of the Canadian women’s squad have a provincial junior championship on their resumé. Nicol represented Ontario at the 2007 Canadian junior championships, finishing one game out of the playoffs. Laura Hickey of Toronto and Hillary McDermott of Guelph, Ont., were part of that 2007 team, and will be alongside Nicol in China. Vice-skip Danielle Inglis of Kleinburg, Ont., led her rink to the 2008 Ontario title before finishing with a 6-6 mark at the national championships.
Hollie NicolNicol is aware of the history of Canada’s performance at the world level, and understands the expectations for her rink.
“I think at every event, Canada is identified by the rest of the field as a team to beat,” said Nicol. “There’s such a strong tradition in Canadian curling that we know we’ll get every other team’s best game. We just have to play as well as we can, and not worry too much about the results.”
Canadian Curling Association National Development Coach Paul Webster has been working with Nicol’s rink in advance of the Universiade, and sees an outside chance for a medal at the Games.
“If we were seeding the event, I think the girls would come in ranked fourth or fifth,” said Webster. “China is sending the same team that lost to Jennifer Jones at the world championships last spring, so I see them as the heavy favorites for gold. It’s a long event, but if Hollie can string it together at the right time, they could be playing for a medal at the end of the week.”
Nicol won the CIS title last winter with a 7-4 victory over Manitoba’s Kaileigh Strath, but she admits her rink took a much more difficult path than they anticipated.
“We dropped our first three games of the week,” said Nicol. “We were pretty much out of the running, and knew we couldn’t lose any more and probably needed some help from other teams. We started winning, somehow managed to get into a tiebreaker and finished the week with seven straight wins. It would be nice if we could avoid that kind of start in Harbin.”
Canada enters the competition as the defending Universiade champion after a University of Calgary side led by Brittany Gregor won gold at the 2007 Winter Games defeating Russia’s Ludmila Privivkova, 6-5 in the final.
Mike Anderson carries the colors for Canada on the men’s side of the ledger.
Mike AndersonEmerging from the 19-team playdown as the 2008 CIS national champion with a 9-4 win over Calgary’s Charley Thomas, Anderson was recognized as the all-star skip at the CIS tournament and is looking forward to leading his rink into action on the international stage.
“A year is a long time to wait for these Games to start,” said Anderson. “We won nationals back in March but didn’t really think about it too much until about Christmas. Then it starts to sink in again about how big this really is. We’ve all been putting in a little extra time and effort for the past couple of months to get ready.”
Like his fellow Golden Hawk skip on the women’s side, Anderson and his crew have an impressive background in the sport. Ontario’s representative at the 2003 Canada Winter Games, Anderson finished one spot short of the podium in the 12-team field. Vice-skip Bill Francis of Toronto is a two-time Ontario junior men’s champion, competing at the Canadian championships in 2004 and 2006. Second Paul Arkilander of Sudbury, Ont., competed in Victoria at the 2004 junior national championships for Northern Ontario.
Anderson’s on-ice preparations for Harbin included an effort to qualify for the 2009 Ontario men’s championship, where the luck of the draw put him in a position to take in advice from one of the best curling teams in the world.
“We came up against Glenn Howard in the playdowns, and had the chance to get his thoughts on preparing for international competition,” said Anderson. “He told us about the importance of getting used to your surroundings as quickly as possible. He also reminded us that even though the language, the food and the culture may be different; in the end, once you’re on the ice – the game is still the game.”
“He also said one of the big differences between this championship and any of the others been in is the length of the event. You don’t usually play in anything longer than a week unless you’ve been in a Brier or a Worlds. Physically, it’s not too bad because the games are fairly well staggered, but mentally, I’m told it can be a bit more of a grind.”
Anderson echoes Nicol’s thoughts on the extra weight wearing the Maple Leaf carries in the global curling circles, but isn’t spending a lot of time fretting about the rest of the field heading into his first taste of international competition.
“For the most part, we’re going in blind,” Anderson explained. “We know that some of the typical powerhouse curling countries will be there, but the only team we’ve actually seen is China and they probably go in as the favorites.”
“We figure it’s probably best for us if we don’t spend a lot of time getting worked up over who’s there and who’s not – you’re not comparing curling resumes.”
Canada’s men failed to medal in 2007 as former world junior champion Steven Laycock of Saskatchewan dropped a semifinal decision to the eventual champions from the United States and then lost the bronze-medal game to Sweden. Mike McEwen from Brandon University led Canada to Universiade gold in 2003 with a 6-4 victory over Switzerland in the final.
Both the men’s and women’s teams will participate in a 10-team round-robin competition, with the top four teams advancing to the medal round.
TEAM CANADA WOMEN’S ROSTER
Skip: Hollie Nicol
Vice: Danielle Inglis
Second: Laura Hickey
Lead: Hillary McDermott
Alternate: Erica Butler
TEAM CANADA MEN’S ROSTER
Skip: Mike Anderson
Vice: Bill Francis
Second: Paul Arkilander
Lead: Matt Mapletoft .
Alternate: Scott McGregor
STAFF
Team Leader: Paul Webster
Team Leader: Jennifer Ferris