CONGRATULATIONS TO MANITOBA/CANADA’S TEAM EINARSON!! In their third world championship (their first worlds was wiped out by the pandemic), Team Einarson has won two Bronze medals. The 2022 and 2023 bronze medals are Canada’s first world women’s medals since Jennifer Jones won gold in North Bay in 2018)

(Curling Canada Release) Canada’s Team Kerri Einarson is back-to-back bronze medal champions following a win on Sunday morning at the 2023 LGT World Women’s Curling Championship, presented by New Holland.

Canada’s Team Einarson of Gimli, Man., defeated Sweden’s Team Anna Hasselborg by a score of 8-5 to earn bronze at Goeransson Arena. It’s the second time in a row the teams clashed for third place at a world championship.

“I feel pretty excited to come here and medal. I know it’s not gold like we wanted, but at least it’s a medal. To win bronze two years in a row is pretty special,” skip Einarson said.

Ask any member of Team Canada – skip Einarson, vice-skip Val Sweeting, second Shannon Birchard, lead Briane Harris, alternate Krysten Karwacki, coach Reid Carruthers and national coach Renée Sonnenberg – to describe the week and they’ll say it was an up-and-down event. Canada built momentum early in the week but couldn’t string together wins in the latter part. The team’s 7-5 round-robin record was good to qualify for the third seed in the playoffs. However, a semifinal loss to Norway kept the Canadians short of the gold-medal game and they needed a solid performance to earn bronze.

“It is very special. It was an up-and-down week, but we put ourselves in a good position yesterday and it was really hard to lose that semifinal again. But I’m super proud of how we came out today and getting up against the hometown team isn’t easy either. We have a really good support crew here with our coaching and families and everything and it definitely helped us get through that,” Sweeting said.

Sweden had the support of the hometown crowd, but it didn’t deter Canada, which jumped out to an early three-point lead. Team Einarson found its footing when Canada had to make a pinpoint draw to the side of the button to score two in the first. Sweden had a chance to score in the second end but rolled out on a hit and gave Canada another point.

Canada forced Sweden to one in the third and repeated its deuce with hammer and steal combo in the fourth and fifth ends to take a five-point lead into the fifth-end break. In the fourth end, Canada was sitting five counters, but an excellent draw from Sweden forced Canada to play a long angle raise to score two. In the fifth, Sweden attempted a runback to score but left Canada sitting one.

Team Hasselborg was far from out of it in the second half of the game and hung on until the 10th end. The teams traded deuces in the sixth and seventh ends, then Sweden scored a single with hammer in the eighth and stole a point in the ninth to get within three. Team Einarson ran Sweden out of stones to claim the win.

The bronze-medal win adds another piece of hardware to Team Einarson’s mantel. While gold was the preferred colour to bring back to Canada, the team believes this will be another building block in long-term success.

“The fact that we were able to still get the bronze with not our strongest performance this week is big for our team,” Birchard said. “It’s lit a fire under us. We want to come back and we want to challenge for the gold, obviously, we had hoped to do that this week but it wasn’t in the cards, so we’ll just look forward to next year.”

Manitoba Curling Hall of Fame & Museum President Peter Nicholls is pleased to announce that Sunrise Credit Union will be the Presenting Sponsor of the 2023 Induction Banquet when it is held at Brandon’s Victoria Inn on May 7, 2023.

“We very much appreciate the support of Sunrise Credit Union in our efforts to celebrate the five champion teams, the two curlers, and the two builders who will be honoured at our 2023 Induction Dinner,” Nicholls said. “It is our first time hosting the event in Westman since 1995 and we are pleased to have such as s strong western Manitoba institution join us in the celebrations.”

The 2023 inductees will include:
TEAM:             Martin Bailey (Heather) – 2004 Canadian Masters Champions
TEAM:              Doug Armour (Souris) – 2005 Canadian Masters Champions
TEAM:             Ray Orr (Minnedosa) – 2009 Canadian Masters Champions
TEAM:             Joyce McDougall (Brandon) – 2011 Canadian Masters Champions
TEAM:              Kelly Robertson (Neepawa) – 2011 Canadian Senior Champions (World Silver)
CURLER:         Doug Harrison
CURLER:         Ruth Wiebe
BUILDER:         Bob Flock
BUILDER:         Dave Petursson

The sponsorship by Sunrise Credit Union expands their support of curling Manitoba which began with support of CurlManitoba’s livestream broadcast program in 2022 and again in 2023.

“The history and heritage of curling in Manitoba have strong roots in rural Manitoba. We are pleased to see the Manitoba Curling Hall of Fame dinner returning to Western Manitoba and Brandon for the first time in 28 years,” said Sunrise Credit Union President & CEO Tim Klassen. “We are happy to expand our sponsorship commitment to curling in Manitoba by supporting this event. We congratulate all the 2023 inductees on their achievements.”

Dinner details are being finalized with planned start times of 4:30PM (cocktails) and 5:30PM (dinner). Ticket purchases ($100 OR Table of 8 – $720) will be through the CurlManitoba office. Interested persons are invited to contact info@curlmanitoba.org to request information on exact timing and ticket purchases.

The Western Canadian Blind Curling Championships will return to Manitoba March 8-11 when seven teams from British Columbia, Alberta, and Host Manitoba will compete in a round-robin tournament.

Organized Blind Curling first took place in 1972 as an awareness activity but soon grew into a competitive gathering of curlers. Alberta and Saskatchewan were joined by British Columbia and Manitoba in 1979. The Western Canadian Blind Curling Association, involving the four western provinces, was established in 1982, the same year that the event was hosted in Beausejour, Manitoba.

The game is played just like any other curling game with the exception that each team has an on-ice Coach who may provide needed help to the athletes. In particular this might involve holding a broom near to the person in the hack OR shining a light to give the thrower an idea of the required line of delivery.

The local host committee regrets that, due to health concerns, Saskatchewan is unable to be represented in what is being billed as a celebration of FIFTY PLUS YEARS of Western Blind Curling. The ‘flexible’ billing acknowledges the impact of the recent covid cancellations on the blind curling event.

British Columbia will be represented by teams from Vancouver and Prince George with the first time addition of a team from the Campbell River. Alberta will have the two representatives from the Edmonton Blind Curling league and Manitoba’s representatives are from the Manitoba Blind Sports Association.

The Manitoba teams are:

SKIP:               Darren Hawkins                      Norm Lyons
THIRD:            Hunter McLaughlin                  Bill Liggins (from Ontario)
SECOND:        Debbie Martinuzzi                   Jennifer Moreland
LEAD:              Miriam Hesslebart                   Lucy Chase
COACH:          Brian Fredrickson                    Matt Hesselbart

Events at Charleswood will begin Wednesday, March 8 at 6:30PM with opening ceremonies followed by the first draw. There will be two draws a day (at 9:30AM & 1:30PM) on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

Of special note, Manitoba’s Scotties champions, and former World Junior Champions, Mackenzie and Emily Zacharias, will participate in the Opening Ceremony. Mackenzie Zacharias has a relationship with Manitoba’s Blind Curling community going back to 2019 when, as part of a U of Manitoba studies practicum, she was involved in blind curling as an observer, coach, and participant (blindfolded) to better understand the sport as blind curlers experience it.

Good luck to all of the Manitobans chasing the Tim Hortons Brier championship this week in London, ON. Of course, the curler.com is cheering for a Dunstone-Carruthers rematch of the final we had a couple weeks ago in Neepawa. Failing that, there are several Manitobans in the field who we’d like to see in the final game.

(With the busy schedule of Scotties and Viterra commentary and playing in the Manitoba Stick Championship, I have been delinquent in not posting this story which has been in my files for a while! My apologies for the delay.)

Paige Smith-Heisler and Alasdair Buchanan, both Fort Rouge junior curlers, were the recipients of the inaugural Winnipeg Curling Club Association (WCCA) Youth Curler Awards. The award, in the form of a keepsake plaque and reimbursement of league fees, is an annual award. Recipients must be under 18 and exhibit exceptional attendance, significant improvement, and commendable sportsmanship within their youth program.

Fort Rouge organizers Kara Balshaw and Mike Granove had nominated the two award recipients. Nominations by organizers of any WCCA club junior program are encouraged to make nominations for 2022/23 awards by a deadline of April 15, 2023.

Prospective award recipients will have been enrolled in their home club’s youth program for at least three full years.

The WCCA comprises participating Winnipeg Region curling clubs and was established some years ago to provide the clubs with a common voice when liaising with CurlManitoba, as well as to share information and coordinate regional events.

Currently the President is Jason Shymanski and the Secretary is Paul Batchelor. Information is available at your club or by contacting Paul Batchelor at dpbatch823@gmail.com