Canadian fans at world women’s in Japan stand out in a crowd

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/03/2015 (4037 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SAPPORO, Japan — Even on Hokkaido, the postcard-pretty island half a world away from Canada’s western shore, Jennifer Jones arrived with a cheering section in tow.

True, it’s a very small contingent, truncated by time and distance, just an echo of the buzz that fills world championships in more traditional curling markets.

Still, over the week, the stands at these 2015 World Women’s Curling Championship have seen a pair of globetrotting curling aficionados from Saskatchewan, a passel of rowdy snowboarders from Banff. They came for the curling, and the friendships, for tradition or just for a laugh.

“It means representing Canada, representing Saskatchewan,” said Hans Madsen, who along with wife Judy has travelled from his home in Yorkton, Sask., to visit more women’s world curling championships than he can immediately remember. “You’re proud of who you are, proud of where you’re from, and proud of the girls you’re watching,”

Their presence has not gone unnoticed, and not just because Madsen painted his bushy beard electric pink in tribute to breast cancer survivors, and slapped his cheeks with pink Saskatchewan Roughriders Band-Aids. It’s mostly that, well, in the polite and sparsely populated seats at Tsukisamu Gymnasium, the Canadian fans stuck out.

That’s the thing about the cosy sport of curling, though, the way it connects people across languages and borders.

On Thursday morning, the Madsens were sitting next to Danish skip Lene Nielsen’s father — Hans was born in Denmark, though he came to Canada as a boy in 1957. By now, over two decades into their dedicated curling journey (they also go to every Scotties), the Madsens have friends all through the field. This is their life, now.

“It’s a little bit of a cost, but an enjoyable cost,” said Madsen of their never-ending journey. “It’s a really friendly atmosphere, with all the teams.”

Look, the hospitality is warm in cool Sapporo, and in every corner of the arena the enthusiasm for the sport is very real.

“Let’s all enjoy curling!” reads a banner over a souvenir and curling education stand on the concourse, and Team Japan has been wildly popular. The foursome skipped by Ayumi Ogasawara is based in Sapporo and their faces are postered all over a nearby subway station.

On Wednesday, though, the audience dwindled for the evening games, thinned from the throng of about 1,700 that turned out to watch Japan take on China in the afternoon draw. Those who remained after dark in the frigid arena were friends and family of the curlers, mostly, and a smattering of local diehards.

In that milieu, you couldn’t miss the volume of the Canadian cheering section — one that, in part, Jennifer Jones recruited on her own.

Here’s a little story that maybe says something about Canada, about the sport of curling, about the shared experiences that bind.

Or maybe it’s just a story about a bunch of Canadian guys having the time of their life: they came to Japan hunting for snow, and made friends with an Olympic champion along the way.

It happened on the plane, Evan Lavallee explained.

There were seven of them on the March 9 flight from Tokyo to Sapporo, including a co-owner of Banff’s rockin’ Rude Boys snowboard shop. The powder on the Rockies has been lacklustre this winter, so the friends figured they’d take a trip to Hokkaido in search of better slopes.

On that flight, they found themselves sitting next to a certain Jennifer Jones.

At first, they weren’t sure if they should say anything, or just leave the reigning Canadian champion alone. So imagine their surprise when the Team Canada skip made the first approach.

“You’re in a plane in Japan, full of Japanese people, and there’s some Canadians,” Jones recalled. “It was so random, so I said ‘Hi,’ and the one guy said, ‘I didn’t want to be the first to say hi!'”

That chance meeting sparked a friendship, of sorts.

So on their way back from carving “killer powder” on the mountains of Hokkaido, Lavallee and his friends made their way to the world championship to pump up the Canadian curlers. For two nights straight, they filled the arena with rowdy cheers — just trying to get featured on TSN, Lavallee joked, though the nervous-looking security guard that sometimes hovered behind them looked less enthused.

Jones though, said she thoroughly approved.

“It’s been so fun,” the skipper said. “They’re just so loud and boisterous, and it’s what curling needs I think.”

Seriously, these guys could cheer. On Wednesday night, while Canada was facing Team Switzerland’s Alina Paetz, Lavallee and his friends got embroiled in their own cheering game with a delegation of Swiss fans. All game, chants of “hoppe Suisse” competed with Canadian chirps — even an occasional bellow of, ahem, “Ricola.”

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No harm, no foul: After Paetz took a 6-4 lead with a seventh-end deuce, one of her Swiss fans returned the “Ricola” call with one of his own. Then, he moseyed over to share some chocolate with the Canadians.

“It’s not a rivalry,” quipped Lucas Jaffe, one of the group. “The Swiss are neutral.”

Later, after Canada fell 7-6 to Switzerland, the snowboarders huddled by the rail as Jones made her way off the ice. The first thing she said, with a wave: “Sorry, guys.”

melissa.martin@freepress.mb.ca

jones to face swiss in 1 v.s 2 page playoff game D4

Melissa Martin
Reporter-at-large

Melissa Martin reports and opines for the Winnipeg Free Press.

Every piece of reporting Melissa produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.