Curling has returned to Saskatchewan as the province’s top-tiered stone-throwers are rolling to the Sutherland Curling Club, ready to rock for another season.
The high-performance athletes are the first curlers in Saskatchewan to test out CURLSASK’s return-to-play format.
“It’s a month later than a normal season,” Team Barber skip Brett Barber said. “But, considering we didn’t know what was going to happen, it’s really exciting.”
Curling during the novel coronavirus pandemic will look noticeably different, the most glaring changes coming to sweeping, where only a single sweeper per team will be permitted, and opposing teams can not sweep within six feet of one another.
“It’s going to be hard,” Barber said. “I’m pretty thankful that it’s not me. But, not being able to go out and help sweep, and not being able to sweep behind the t-line is going to be a lot to get used to.”
“We’ll have to make sure one sweeper can be as effective as possible,” Team Mitchell skip Jessica Mitchell added. “Those are the conversations that we’re going to have in our early season practices.”
Other changes include sign-in, contact tracing logs at the rinks, sanitizing stations and traffic flow markers. Despite all of the changes, the teams are just happy to be back together.
“I’m really strong on team bonding, so it’s been tough,” Barber said. “But it’s really awesome to get to the rink and be together, it’s been a long time.”
“Actually, getting on the ice will be good for everyone’s mental health,” Mitchell said. “I think it’s a little bit of normalcy and regularity, and that’s what we all need right now.
Both skips agree that it’s up to them to enjoy their time back on the pebbled ice, and to make the best of their return to play experience.
“We’ll roll with the changes, and everybody is going to have to roll through it together,” Barber said. “There’s going to be mistakes, and people are going to kind of be fumbling around, but, we’ll get through it.”
“No matter what’s going on, around the ice, with the sport, in the world; you’ve still got to be able to hit the brooms,” Mitchell said. “So, we’re going to be in the hack trying to make sure that we have our technical down pat. As long as you’re sliding straight, really, you can deal with anything off of the ice.”
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