OSHAWA, Ont. — Lisa Weagle was stealing the show at the Oshawa Curling Club on Tuesday afternoon.
No, it wasn’t because the lead for Team Rachel Homan was putting up tricky guards or making her trademarked tick shots. Rather it was because she was making those gotta-see-it game-winners and clutch takeouts to help power her partnership with John Epping into the final of the Wall Grain Mixed Doubles Classic.
The event featured some traditional mixed doubles teams, however, with the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling National wrapping up Sunday just two blocks away at the General Motors Centre, the 20-team field was dominated by some elite combinations.
Weagle was initially hesitant to compete as she didn’t even know the rules but took to the ice for their first game immediately after winning the National with Team Homan.
“John asked me and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to play at all,” Weagle said. “Then he asked me again and I thought, ‘Well, why not try it?’ Since it was in Oshawa right after the Slam it seemed like a good time to at least see if I liked it and if I was any good at it. So I think we might play again.”
In the case of Mike and Dawn McEwen, they didn’t really have a choice who they were playing with, although the husband-wife pairing has some distinct advantages.
“On some of these teams the players live in different cities, different provinces, but I know how she throws,” Mike McEwen said. “It’s not like we had to have a whole bunch of practices before we got here and for me to figure out how she throws because we go to our home club and I’ve held the broom for her many times and vice versa. That’s a nice little advantage for living in the same city and being forced to go throw rocks because we’re carrying (our baby daughter) Vienna with us to the end of the curling club and putting her at the end of the ice so sometimes we’re forced to practice together.”
The 411 on Mixed Doubles: All you need to know
While the World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship has been held annually since 2008, the sport has mostly flown under the radar. That is until this year when it was announced as a full-fledged Olympic event set to debut immediately at the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea.
That sent mixed doubles on a fast track with Canada needing to step up its game. Canada has medalled only once at the worlds — a bronze in 2009. There’s no guarantee Canada, ranked sixth overall in mixed doubles, will qualify with just seven spots up for grabs in the eight-team field (South Korea is guaranteed a berth as the host nation).
Players like Chelsea Carey, who has partnered with Team Carruthers lead Colin Hodgson, see it as their chance to make it to the Olympics as the top curlers are all scrambling to get involved.
“It’s gone from zero to 100 already and it’s nowhere near done,” Carey said. “Once it gets on-air at the Olympics and the general public starts to see it and it’s very exciting to watch on TV because you see huge ends all the time. It’s all offence, there’s no defending in it, so it would be a lot of fun and I imagine it’ll rocket in popularity once it’s actually on TV at the Olympics. With the teams and players this year all of a sudden everyone is clamouring to find themselves a teammate and get into these events because of the Olympic potential and all of that kind of stuff. It’s definitely a really exciting time to be involved.”
The final came down to the McEwens against Weagle/Epping. McEwen stole a point in the opening end but then came the pistol shot from Weagle in the second as she made an in-off to tap and score three for the lead.
McEwen took one in the third and then rode the steal train, swiping points in three consecutive ends, to build a 5-3 advantage. Weagle/Epping called the power play for the seventh end but they had to settle for a single as the middle part of the ice started running flat and they couldn’t drag their final stone far enough into the paint to count for a deuce.
Mike McEwen switched to a hair brush to help fight through the fudgy conditions. It was an unusual sight as McEwen had to ditch his lucky corn broom immediately as he left the hack, quickly pick up the hair brush and race down the sheet to keep up with the rock. The McEwens prevailed adding another point coming home to win 6-4 and claim the Wall Grain Mixed Doubles Classic title.
Your Wall Grain Mixed Doubles Classic champions @MikeMcEwen80 & @02ginger! #curling pic.twitter.com/PXQ1gIYW1D
— Jonathan Brazeau (@JonathanBrazeau) November 17, 2015
Although Weagle was the star, don’t expect her to be thinking about making the switch to skip in the traditional four-person game.
“It’s a lot of pressure,” she said. “I’m definitely not gunning for Rachel’s job any time soon. I’ll let her continue to do that, it’s too stressful for me.”
On top of the prize money for winning the event, Team McEwen also earned additional funding from Curling Canada to help them on their mixed doubles journey. The impact of the victory hadn’t set in for McEwen after the game.
“I don’t even know yet,” he admitted. “It pays off the credit card pretty nicely.
“We’ve got to sit down and see what this means going forward. We’ve had our eye on nationals in Saskatoon so a quick little flight from Winnipeg. Kind of look at the year end. There’s still a lot going on at year-end depending on how her team does at Scotties and how our team does at provincials and so forth but we’ve got our eyes on mixed doubles a little bit.
“We want to get as much prep as we can so that if our teams don’t win the four-person trials, we’ve got a lot of experience and we could step on the ice and feel pretty comfortable in an Olympic mixed doubles trials situation. It’ll definitely stay on our radar going forward and we’ll have to try and figure out how the heck we have more weekends in the curling season to do more.”
Another mixed doubles event is planned for Toronto in March building towards the Canadian mixed doubles trials in Saskatoon (March 31 to April 3) and the world championships in Karlstad, Sweden (April 16-23).