By Lauren McNabb
Canadian kids really know how to rock … or at least how to throw one. The Canadian Junior Men’s Team won a gold medal at the World Curling Championships on March 29 in Thunder Bay, Ont.
The 5-2 victory over Scotland was history in the making for 19-year-old John Morris and his Ottawa Curling Club, consisting of third Craig Savill, 18, second Andy Ormsby, 20, and 18-year old lead Brent Laing. The win marked the first undefeated sweep for a Canadian team at the world level and was the eighth time Canada’s Junior Men have captured gold at the annual event.
“Winning gold and hearing our national anthem was pretty cool,” says Morris. “The sweep showed Canada is still No. 1.”
The Canadian Junior Women’s Team also won this year’s world championship. The combined win for both teams has the members of the Ottawa Curling Club hoping the success of Canada’s young curling talents will bring more interested curlers and fans to the sport.
“Winning gold has sort of made us ambassadors of this sport,” says Morris. “Our success is incentive for other players to get there, practise more and see how good they can be.”
According to Morris, the fans at Lakehead University’s Tournament Centre in Thunder Bay were some of the best he has ever seen. He says people have really started to pay attention to curling and the roar of the crowd was an indicator of how exciting they found the game.
“Young people especially will want to come and curl. They see John Morris on TV, they’ll want to be like John Morris,” says Danny Lamoureux, manager of the Ottawa Curling Club. “These guys are terrific young men and like any other sport, we need stars to market our sport. These kids are our future.”
Lamoureux says the high-intensity environment and quality play in the world championship tournament helped illustrate how great curling can be for both the athletes and the fans.
“When the gold medal game was aired, the atmosphere at the rink was like a football or hockey game. It was so noisy and fun,” says Lamoureux. “The excitement of the sport really came through on TV.”
Going into the tournament, Canada was considered one of the top teams and a real threat to knock off defending champions, Switzerland. However, no one expected the Canadians, who last captured the gold in 1994, to dominate the way they did throughout the tournament. Canada had a perfect 9-0 record and didn’t face a real threat until the championship game when it took them until the third end to break a scoreless tie on their way to victory.
However, Earl Morris, who co-coaches the team with Brian Savill and is John Morris’s father, says team members will have to work extra hard if they want to continue as champions.
Coach Morris warns that the team will have to get used to playing with a different second next year as Ormsby will be too old to play at the junior level. Players will also have to get used to juggling their athletic and academic careers. Laing started university this year and Morris begins in September.
“They are all very positive, all very outgoing, all very smart,” says coach Morris. “There are lots of opportunity for them to succeed, but the challenge will be for them to get their priorities in order and then find the time to help out.”
Due to their success and sportsmanlike attitude, Morris says the team has received invitations to several charity tournaments and bonspiels.
But despite their impressive run at the world championships, the team is far from concluding its training. According to coach Morris, the team practises several nights per week and plays in weekend tournaments. They plan to train harder for next year.
“The best thing about this sport is that you can play it from age six to 60,” says John Morris. “I plan to be around for a lot more championships and medals.”