Local curlers steal provincial placement

By Tyler Lowey, Times Reporter

Sometimes, extra ends are needed to determine a curling champion.
On this occasion, extra friends were required to bring home the Southern Alberta Mixed Curling championship.
The local rink of Scott Garnett, Jason and Heather Wilson, and Katie Crump positioned themselves in the B final, when disaster struck.
Team skip Garnett got a call the evening of March 3 and learned the area sales manager for his home building company suddenly passed away and somebody needed to cover the sales centre during the grand opening of their first show home in the Calgary area.
Mixed teams of four cannot compete with three players. Either one guy or girl has to take the lead, and then the genders alternate the rest of the way through the lineup.
So, Garnett called an old friend.
Matt McDonald was in St. Albert coaching the Henry Wise Wood Warriors curling club at the Alberta School’s Athletic Association provincials when he got the call. Jumping at the opportunity, he raced down south by midnight and was in top shape for the first stone to be thrown March 4 in Cochrane at the Spray Lakes Facility.
“Matt is a great guy. He curls with me on my men’s league team and he is a great curler,” said Garnett. “We are very lucky he was able to make the long drive to help us out.”
The makeshift Garnett rink was taking on the B. Ness rink and jumped on them early, by scoring one point in the first end and then stealing three more in the second end, riding the early momentum to a 7-1 victory and earning a spot at the provincial championships March 29 to April 1 in Beaumont.
“It was a pretty crazy weekend. It wasn’t a tournament we had planned to enter for a long time, it kind of just happened, and then with all the stuff that happened between Saturday and Sunday, it just made for a crazy weekend,” said Garnett.
Making things a little sweeter was how tight-knit Garnett’s rink was.
All calling the Strathmore Curling Club home – with the exception of McDonald – they all know each other through years of curling. For one, Heather is Jason’s mother and Crump is Jason’s aunt. Garnett used to coach Jason six years ago.
“Jason throws as good as anyone who I’ve curled with. So, with his mom as the lead and Katie as the third, to keep everyone in their roles, Matt took Jason’s old spot as second and Jason threw last stone for us,” said Garnett.
With provincials on the horizon and all fingers crossed on no sudden tragedies, McDonald will have to take a back seat as Garnett rejoins his rink in preparation for their biggest tourney of the season.
That doesn’t mean that he’s out of the fold entirely.
“We don’t need a coach at the provincial level,” said Garnett. “But if we win this and go to nationals, I know exactly who I plan on calling to make the trip with us.”