purcell looking for hot hand again at canadian curling pre-trials in wolfville
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owen purcell's halifax curling club rink will compete at the home hardware canadian curling pre-trials event in wolfville, beginning oct. 20. from left are lead ryan abraham, second gavin lydiate, lead luke saunders and purcell.
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owen purcell hopes to find the hot hand again at next week’s home hardware canadian curling pre-trials event in wolfville.
eight men’s and women’s teams are playing to earn the final spot in the montana’s canadian curling trials, nov. 22–30 in halifax.
purcell sees a wide-open field for the pre-trials event that begins next monday. purcell will be joined by braden calvert (winnipeg), scott howard (navan, ont.), mark kean (woodstock, ont.), jayden king (london, ont.), jordan mcdonald (winnipeg), jean-michel valleyfield, que.) and sam mooibroek (whitby, ont.).
“it’s very interesting, the olympic trials are a little different because you have two, three, maybe four teams that are definite favourites,” said the halifax curling club skip. “but for something like this, everybody is so good that if anybody gets hot, they can take it. so, it’s going to be a dog fight.”
earlier this year, the purcell rink had the hot hand when they won their first nova scotia tankard and ended the province’s 19-year playoff drought at the montana’s brier. they qualified for the playoffs with a 5-3 record but fell 10-6 in the page 3/4 game to eventual brier champion brad jacobs.
the purcell rink, which includes third luke saunders, second gavin lydiate and lead ryan abraham, is ranked 14th in the canadian team ranking system. mooibroek holds the ninth spot, followed by howard (11), calvert (12) and kean (13).
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the women’s draw features danielle inglis (ottawa), kayla macmillan (victoria), nancy martin (martensville, sask.), beth peterson (winnipeg), myla plett (edmonton), krista scharf (thunder bay), selene sturmay (edmonton) and ashley thevenot (martensville, sask.).
the purcell team opens its seven-game schedule on monday against mooibroek (9 a.m.) and howard (7 p.m.). on oct. 21, the team takes on menard (9 a.m.) and calvert (7 p.m.). the team faces mcdonald (2 p.m.) and king (7 p.m.) on oct. 22 and wraps up preliminary play on oct. 24, against kean (2 p.m.).
the halifax curling club rink has a 6-8 record through three events, stu sells oakville, amj campbell shorty jenkins and stu sells toronto.
however, a solid week of practice has the team in a good spot, said purcell.
“we’ve been playing some tough teams and maybe some results not quite going our way, but we’ve honestly had a really good week, especially this last week, of training, preparing for the pre-trials. looking forward to this week, just carrying through some of the things we have been working on.”
with the purcell rink qualified for curling canada’s u27 nextgen program, the team changed the lineup with 23-year-old lydiate replacing veteran scott saccary.
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“it’s weird because you want to have four guys that are all really on the same page about what our long-term goals are,” said purcell. “short-term goals, everything was fantastic. scott is an awesome guy, and i absolutely loved playing with him, but we had an opportunity to get in the next gen program with curling canada.
“sometimes you just have to make really crappy decisions to be able to do things that help you out in the long run.”
purcell, who has played against lydiate at the university level and when he was a member of the jayden king rink, said the ontario curler brings fire to the team.
“he’s a gym rat, so he’s very strong, can sweep really well,” said purcell. “he’s what this team needs.”
purcell said the team is excited to once again play on arena ice at the andrew h. mccain arena in wolfville.
“we will be one of the teams at the pre-trials that has had the most recent experience on arena ice, especially with the conclusion of the brier last year,” said purcell. “we had a really good run, definitely looking to carry through some of the experience there into the arena ice we will play on.”
being the home-ice favourite is also a bonus, said purcell.
“i think it’s going to be so much fun and i think it is going to help take the edge off a little bit,” the 25-year-old skip said. “just getting out there and being able to have fun is going to be really important. it’s going to be fantastic.”
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