Though the finish wasn’t exactly how they had envisioned it, Ottawa’s Ryan McCrady and Rideau Curling Club teammates made a strong impression at the 2014 junior national curling championships in Liverpool, Nova Scotia.
The team, consisting of McCrady, Matt Haughn, Cole Lyon-Hatcher, and Doug Key, got off to a strong start in their first four matches.
However, the team struggled to adapt to venue changes, which forced the team to play on different surfaces throughout the tournament, switching from the Liverpool Curling Club ice to the Emera Centre ice.
McCrady’s squad dropped two games before finishing with a 6-4 record through the round robin. The record left them agonizingly short of the playoffs.
Even still, their early dominance had turned some heads; at the end of the tournament McCrady was named as the skip on the second All-Star team.
"After our first four wins, it was a battle trying to figure out the ice at the arena," says McCrady. "We’re a little disappointed, but we really got some really great experience."
McCrady understands the value of experience.
Last season, alongside current teammates Lyon-Hatcher and Haughn, the team fell one game short of qualifying for the national championships.
Though the result was bitterly disappointing, the experience proved invaluable for McCrady this season, when the team found themselves back in the provincial final.
Not to be denied twice, the Rideau Curling Club team showed the poise they had lacked a year prior as they cruised to a commanding 9-3 victory.
"This year, we knew if we got to the final three at provincials, we’d be the team that had been there before," says coach Ray Bushfield. "We had our sights set on qualifying for nationals from day one."
But qualifying proved to be only half the battle on the road to nationals, however.
Teams are typically given 21 days after qualifying to announce their intention to attend the national championships.
This year, scheduling had been pushed up by two weeks because of the Olympic Games, meaning teams only had 11 days to arrange for travel, uniforms, and sponsorships.
"We were so busy getting all that other stuff done, we didn’t realize some the adjustments we needed to make on the ice," said Bushfield.
Shortly before they left for the championships, the team was surprised with a send-off party arranged by members of the Rideau Curling Club.
The club boasts about 600 members, with around 10 per cent of the members playing competitive.
The members collected donations to help cover expenses on the trip, a gesture which Bushfield calls an example of the phenomenal support the team has received from the club.
In the hectic flurry of activity over the last few weeks, plans for next season have not been finalized for either McCrady or Bushfield.
The all-star skip McCrady will be too old to compete at juniors next season and is also three years into a degree at Carleton University.
McCrady has been pegged as a potential future star on the national scene by his coach..
Bushfield, who has spent the last four years coaching McCrady, has yet to decide where he will coach next season.