University, college curling misses the button in Canadian curling scene
Global News
University curling teams don't play conference games. U Sports curling is limited to conference championships and the Canadian championship.
In the aftermath of missing the playoffs in February’s Winter Olympics, Jennifer Jones and her teammates discussed why other countries have become so strong in international curling.
The conversation planted an idea in the head of Jones’ second Jocelyn Peterman. She was still in Beijing when she messaged her curling club’s director about establishing varsity curling teams for the University of Calgary.
A U of C alumnus, Peterman looked north for her reasoning. The University of Alberta in Edmonton graduates some of top curlers in the country and the world.
National champion skip Brendan Bottcher is the poster child for a powerhouse university curling program.
Curling Canada runs annual national university and college championships, with Sudbury, Ont., the host city of the 2023 tournaments.
Just 16 of the 56 U Sports schools field varsity curling teams, however. Another nine operate the sport at a club level and the other 31 don’t have curling teams.
Of the 98 schools in the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association, there are just 14 men’s teams and a dozen women’s teams playing this season.
Calgary never had Dinos curlers before Peterman’s pitch to athletic director Ben Matchett made it easy for him to say yes for 2022-23.
