Free Press’ Wiecek wins national award

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This article was published 12/03/2012 (5263 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WINNIPEG Free Press curling writer Paul Wiecek has been chosen as the recipient of the Scotty Harper Media Award for writing the most compelling Canadian curling story of the year from 2011.

Wiecek, 44, was honoured at the closing awards lunch of the 2012 Tim Hortons Brier last Sunday in Saskatoon. He was presented with a plaque and $500 by Laura Lochanski, the chair of the Canadian Curling Association’s board of governors.

Wiecek, who also won the award in 2005, has been the Free Press curling writer since 1998.

“It was a surprise and quite an honour to be recognized this way,” Wiecek said from Saskatoon. “This award is competed for by writers from all over the country and I have nothing but respect for all those men and women working hard to cover this sport.”

Wiecek was recognized for his story on former Cathy Overton-Clapham second Leslie Wilson, whose brother Brent died suddenly in the months leading up to the 2010-11 curling season. The story was published in the Winnipeg Free Press on Feb. 22, 2011 under the headline “Toba’s fairytale story slipping away.”

The award is judged by a panel from the Carleton University School of Journalism and Communication in Ottawa.

“To win something like this, I would thank Leslie and the Wilson family for letting me tell what was obviously such a personal story on their part. I imagine that was a difficult decision for them to make to let the public have a glimpse of what trials they were dealing with over the course of that winter,” Wiecek said.

“One of the joys of this job is if you can find these stories every now and then that transcend sport and this was a perfect example of one of those stories,” he added. “There was this monumental challenge in the lives of this family and she decided to persevere and it ended up being this remarkable year for her and she ended up winning her second straight Manitoba women’s curling championship with Cathy Overton-Clapham.”

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The award is named in honour of Scotty Harper, who covered curling for the Free Press from the 1940s to 1960s.

The members of the Canadian Curling Reporters Association, which includes journalists from print, radio and TV, were eligible to submit a single curling-related story published or broadcast during 2011.

“It’s a great sport to cover. It’s ordinary people doing extraordinary things,” Wiecek said.

— staff