The field for the 2009 Sun Life Financial Curling Classic includes more than half of the 16 teams who have qualified for the chance to represent Canada in both men’s and woman’s curling at the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver in February.
The $100,000 Sun Life event – which began on Friday and continues through to Monday at three local clubs -also features several teams who just missed out on berths to the 2009 Canadian Curling Association’s Olympic trials, otherwise known as the Tim Hortons Roar of the Rings, which is set for Dec. 6-14 in Edmonton.
And one of those teams -Mike McEwen’s Winnipeg rink -may have been the closest of all the teams who didn’t qualify.
“It’s huge,” McEwen said of the disappointment of not making it to the Olympic qualifying tournament next month.
“That was our goal for over two years. We were preparing for that and we were well prepared.
“It’s tough. You look back at the what-ifs. Hopefully, it will be easier in December because then they’ll only be one happy team and a lot of disappointed teams.”
McEwen’s team -which began the Sun Life Classic with a 6-3 win over Radek Klima at the Brant Curling Club on Friday morning -was in Prince George last weekend at the pre-trial Road to the Roar event.
McEwen’s rink, which includes vice Matt Wozniak, second B. J. Neufeld and lead Denni Neufeld, faced Jason Gunnlaugson of Beasejour, Man., in the C qualifier final.
While the defeat obviously hurt, making matters worse for the McEwen team wasn’t just that they lost, but that they were defeated in an extra end, 8-7.
That allowed Gunnlaugson to grab one of the eight men’s spots at the Roar of the Rings and it left McEwen on the outside looking in.
Now, without the chance to represent his country in the Olympics, McEwen and company are shifting gears,
“We still want to represent Manitoba at the Brier,” said the 29-year-old, who is in Brantford for the third time.
McEwen, like many others in the curling world, believe his team’s future is bright.
“We’ve always said curling is like golfing,” he explained. “You don’t hit your peak until your mid-30s and I’m the oldest one on this team.
“We hope we’ll be around for a couple more decades.”
As for the present, McEwen and his rink focused Friday at defeating a talented team from the Czech Republic in the opening draw of the Sun Life Classic.
McEwen got off to a decent start by scoring a single point in the first. However, Klima rebounded with a point of his own in the second end and then another, off of a steal, in the third end.
McEwen then broke the game wide open with three in the fourth and a steal in the fifth to take a 5-2 lead.
The teams exchanged single points in the sixth and seventh ends before McEwen ran Klima out of rocks in the eighth.
For Klima, the result wasn’t what the team was looking for but the performance was good.
“We played much better than two or three days before that,” said the skip. “We came two days earlier and we played very bad the last two days.”
The Klima rink isn’t used to playing poorly.
Klima began playing more than 20 years ago, thanks to a Canadian connection.
“I saw it in Calgary (on TV) at the ’88 Olympic Games,” said Klima when asked how he got interested in the sport.
“I built the first club in the Czech Republic and started the Czech Republic Curling Association. I was president for seven years.”
Aside from that, Klima and his brother, Tomas, accomplished quite a lot on the ice as they have captured six national championships.
After winning in 2000, they took some time off and then built a new team about five years ago.
That team -which includes Radek and Tomas Klima, along with second Jan Samueli and lead Tomas Paul -then won three straight championships from 2006-08.
They’ll be looking for another in January.
“We want to win that,” said Klima, whose brother couldn’t make the trip to the Sun Life and was replaced by Radek’s son, Lukas.
As for the competition at this event, Klima said it’s very good.
“It’s a really good field,” said the skip, who is in Brantford for the first time.
“Hopefully we will see some good curling here and win one or two (games). I hope we will enjoy it. There are great teams.”
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