Young curlers return from Ontario tournament better, and wiser

Iqaluit’s junior girl curlers just returned from their first tournament of the season. From left: coach Denise Hutchings and players Sadie Pinksen, Christianne West, Katie Chislett Manning and skip Emily Matthews. (PHOTO BY DAVID MURPHY)

Sometimes when you lose, you still win.

That’s a bit of wisdom gained by four 14-year-old curlers who travelled to Ottawa Nov. 1 to Nov. 3 to compete in the JSI Ottawa Valley Curling Association Junior SuperSpiel tournament.

The team was successful — not exactly on the scoreboard, but in achieving personal goals.

“We don’t remember the score,” said Christianne West, one of the team’s players, when Nunatsiaq News caught up with them Nov. 6 as they were set to play an adult team at the Iqaluit Curling Club.

“We focused on making our shots. So at the end of the [first] game none of us actually knew what the actual score was. It was a big number. We lost by a lot,” she said.

“But we didn’t focus on that. We focused on getting better and progressing.”

This is the first time Iqaluit has been invited to the 20th annual SuperSpiel which features team from Scotland, the United States and from across Canada.

The team raised $10,000 from private donations to travel to the tournament. Northwestel also donated jerseys with their names on the back specifically for the SuperSpiel.

The girls played four games and lost all four — but that’s not the point, said player Katie Chislett Manning.

“We focused on strategies and we completed a lot of our goals compared to our first and last game,” Chislett Manning said.

Skip Emily Matthews said playing with the best young curlers in the country — if not the world — helped them grow their skills and confidence.

“Just to be invited to something like that and to be able to see them and curl with them and learn from them is amazing. It’s incredible,” Matthews said.

Unfortunately, that level and availability of competition, and the skills it helps to develop, is difficult to find in Nunavut, said team coach Denise Hutchings, who has played for Team Nunavut at the Canadian Curling Association championships.

The curling rink in Iqaluit is only open starting Oct. 1, which doesn’t leave much practice time for fall and early winter tournaments.

In fact, the tournament in Ottawa was one of the girls’ first opportunities to play this season.

“So we were definitely trying to get back into the swing of things. Everyone else has been practicing pretty much all summer whereas our rink goes away in the summer,” Matthews said.

And teams in the South have an edge because they’re able to drive to different tournaments frequently — that means the team “falls far behind” others in the South, Hutchings said.

But this tournament helped the team reach more attainable goals in the short and long term, Hutchings said.

The team plans to compete in two tournaments next year, the national junior championships in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, Jan. 18-26, and the Arctic Winter Games in Fairbanks Alaska, March 15-22.

“I’d like to see them middle of the pack at the Arctic Winter Games,” Hutchings said.

The team is preparing for the AWGs by playing in Iqaluit’s adult competitive league. This is the second year now that the girls have participated in that league.

“The model coming into the competitive league is: I don’t care if you win one game. But [it’s about] the experience, the strategy,” Hutchings said.