National university curling championships go down to the wire
Saskatchewan, Calgary rinks earn trips to Torino
Steve Bohrn Staff
On March 22, some of the best young curlers from across the country descended on Winnipeg to take part in the Canadian University Curling Championships (CUCC). At stake were the national title and a chance to go to Italy for the winter World University Games in 2007. Saskatchewan on the men’s side and Calgary on the women’s side made away with the top honours.
This year marks the last year that the CUCC will be without Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) sponsorship, as curling has been accepted as a CIS sport for the 2006-07 school year.
But for this year, Asham Arena, formerly known as the Valour Road Curling Club, played host to a talent-filled group of young curlers, with long-standing sponsor Arnold Asham continuing his support. Many of the rinks competing featured curlers that had competed previously in either the Canadian Junior Curling Championships or the World Juniors.
The University of Manitoba was well-represented at this event, with two male rinks and one female rink, and teams also came from as far away as Acadia, Laurentian and Lakehead Universities to compete. In total, there were 12 teams competing in both the men’s and the women’s events, with teams split into two pools of six, in which each team completed a five-game round-robin schedule. There was then a four-team page playoff system, with the championship game being played on Sunday, March 26.
The top men’s team in the round-robin was the rink from the University of Saskatchewan, who went undefeated at 5-0. The top female rink was a strong entry from Lakehead University, who went 4-1, with their only loss coming against the U of M rink, skipped by Samantha Owen.
The men’s rink skipped by Adam Walker was the only U of M rink to make the playoffs, however, with Adam Norget playing third. Norget made history in 2005 when, at the age of 20, he became the youngest skip to win the world’s largest curling tournament, the Manitoba Curling Association Bonspiel.
But Walker’s rink ran into a hot University of Winnipeg rink in the playoffs, and the resulting match captivated those in attendance.
The game was a back-and-forth affair that featured seven lead changes. The turning point was a steal in the eighth end by the Winnipeg rink that Walker just couldn’t recover from. Manitoba managed to score a point in the 10th end to send the game to extra ends, but without the hammer, they fell quickly and lost the game 6-5.
The University of Saskatchewan’s Steve Laycock easily took care of the Winnipeg rink 7-3 in the semifinal, which set up an all-Saskatchewan showdown in the men’s side final. Laycock’s rink would go on to play the University of Regina in an exciting match that Saskatchewan took 7-4 in a thrilling final game that came down to the last stone.
On the women’s side, Lakehead took on the University of Calgary’s Brittany Gregor in a final match that was just as dramatic as the men’s. The Gregor’s rink ended up with the win and the national championship.
The winning teams will be heading to Italy for the chance to represent their country at the World University Games in Torino from January 17-27, 2007.
