Manitoba ready to rock national championships
U of M women’s curling team looking to finish strong
Steve Bohrn Staff
The Canadian University Curling Championships (CUCC) open up on Wednesday, March 22 at Asham Arena right here in Winnipeg, and the University of Manitoba will be well-represented at the big event.
Both the men’s and the women’s teams that will be curling for our school had to make it through fierce competition in the University of Manitoba play-downs in order to get to the national championships.
On the men’s side, the Chambers rink — skipped by Corey Chambers, with Michel Martin, Ryan Blundon, David Karichy and Job Dueck rounding out the team — took home top honours by beating out five other strong teams.
In women’s action, it was Samantha Owen who earned the right to go to University Curling’s biggest competition in Canada, along with third Tracy Mcrea, second Stacy Hinds and lead Alicia Pierson.
The Owen rink has been curling together for three years now, but they have known each other for a lot longer than that.
“We used to curl against each other in juniors. Then a couple of our teams broke up and we all got together and decided to give it a shot curling together,” said Owen.
Owen’s rink curls out of the Fort Rouge curling club — the same club that three-time Scott Tournament of Hearts contender Janet Harvey curls out of — and has accomplished a lot in their short time together.
“We went to the CUCC last year in Edmonton, and we also curled in the play-downs for the Scott [Tournament of Hearts]. Both times we played well but didn’t end up with the result we wanted,” explained Owen.
In Edmonton, the rink had three wins and three losses, narrowly missing the playoffs and a chance at the title. At the Scott Tournament of Hearts play-downs, they ran into a field of experienced, older skips, but learned a lot from the experience.
“I love playing in the big games against teams that have been there and know how to get it done. It adds a little something extra to the game.”
Curling became an obsession for the talented team at an early age.
“The first bonspiel I curled in was the annual Carman bonspiel, and I was about six [at the time]. Since then, I have come a long way,” said Owen.
The team does have to train a lot to stay competitive at their current level of competition: they are out on the ice five or six days a week for an hour or more, throwing rocks and helping each other with problems that they encounter.
“We really don’t have a coach right now. My mom used to coach us, but she’s out of the city now. We all understand the game pretty well and are able to help each other out quite a bit,” said Owen.
Right now, the team’s main focus is on making the playoffs at the CUCC and then going from there.
“The ultimate goal is to make it to the International University Curling Championships in Torino, Italy, in 2007, but for right now we are just going to take it one day at a time and have fun.”
The CUCC bonspiel starts on March 22, with the finals on March 26. All games will be played at the Asham Arena.
