Champions champing at the bit

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This article was published 20/11/2020 (2047 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Mackenzie Zacharias and Jacques Gauthier were sitting on top of the world in February and now they’re sitting idly by as the COVID-19 pandemic shelves curling events across the province and nationwide.

The 2020-21 season is the coming-out party for the two young skips and the Manitoba teams they command. After completing the sweep at the world junior championships in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, Zacharias and Gauthier were set to graduate and join the grown-ups.

But save for two local events apiece in October, Zacharias’s Altona foursome and Gauthier’s crew from Winnipeg’s Assiniboine Memorial club haven’t cobbled together much of a competitive fall season as they make their official debuts in women’s and men’s play, respectively.

And a whole lot of nothing lies ahead for the foreseeable future. 

“For us, we have the perspective that we were so fortunate to get our world championship in before everything shut down. We’re all really grateful, especially as juniors, getting that last chance to wear the Maple Leaf. But it’s really unfortunate going into our first year in women’s that we don’t get to play as many games,” Zacharias, 21, said this week.

“We made a tentative schedule that would have kept us busy. We planned to go to Toronto and Alberta a couple of times to try and build up (Canadian Team Ranking System) points and some experience in the women’s game but, unfortunately, because of COVID we had to cancel all those plans.” 

The fourth-year kinesiology student at the University of Manitoba captured the world crown with her younger sister, Emily, playing second, Karlee Burgess at third, and lead Lauren Lenentine.

The identical composition looks to make its mark in a province already stocked with some of the finest women’s teams on the planet. Reigning national Scotties champion Kerri Einarson of Gimli is behind only Anna Hasselborg of Sweden in the World Curling Federation rankings, while Winnipeg-based teams skipped by Tracy Fleury and Jennifer Jones are rated third and fifth, respectively.

Zacharias, ranked 31st by the WCF, is eager to match talent and wits against that starry trio of local teams, along with other elite Canadian quartets such as Ontario’s Rachel Homan, Kelsey Rocque of Alberta, Corryn Brown of British Columbia and Robyn Silvernagle of Saskatchewan.

“It’s definitely daunting. You look a them and you’re like, ‘Wow, we might get to compete in the same events as them.’ I’ve seen them on TV so many times and here we are potentially playing them. It’s really cool,” said Zacharias. “Coming from Manitoba, there’s so many people to look up to. Jen (Jones) was definitely one of them. Basically anyone who had that Manitoba jacket on at the Scotties, you look up to them and think, ‘I really want to get there one day.’ That’s the dream. That’s the goal.”

Zacharias and Darcy Robertson, another stellar team from Winnipeg, split a pair of bonspiel finals on back-to-back weekends (Morris and Winnipeg) in October. But code-red health restrictions in the province owing to the health crisis have forced curling clubs to close their doors, meaning teams aren’t even practising together right now.

“Our last competitive game would have been at worlds in February (a 7-5 victory over South Korea in the gold-medal game), so when we stepped on the ice in Morris (Oct. 16) we were interested to see what would transfer over. We had a bit of rust at the start but we were able to shake it off and we had a pretty successful couple of weekends,” said Zacharias.

“We are still really excited for the rest of the season to see where we could go with that. Hopefully, we will in the new year when we can get back on the ice.”

What a blast the second half of the season would be for the young crew, if and when curling returns to its regularly scheduled programming.

Zacharias has already earned a spot in the 2021 provincials — slated for Jan. 19-24 at East St. Paul — after a triumph Oct. 25 over Robertson at the Atkins Curling Supply Classic at Assiniboine Memorial. They’ve also been invited to the Champions Cup, the first Grand Slam of their careers, which was originally slated for April but was bumped one year ahead. 

The team is 11th on the CTRS standings, which means it also has a legitimate shot at qualifying for the Olympic pre-trials event, a tournament to determine the final two qualifiers for the Roar of the Rings trials, Nov. 27 to Dec. 5, 2021, at the SaskTel Centre in Saskatoon.

“I learned a lot last year, especially as a skip, playing some women’s games and playing against a lot of these experienced teams. The women’s game and junior game are definitely very different. The biggest thing I learned is the tolerance in our shots,” said Zacharias. “In the women’s game, if you don’t make your shot almost perfect, you’re going to get penalized for it and these really good women’s teams are going to make you pay for that.

“It really helped us focus in practice and our games to really fine-tune our skills and really do our best to be precise. The events, hopefully in the new year, are going to be pretty intense. We’re excited to see how we handle things.”

Meanwhile, Gauthier’s inaugural season in men’s play has been a veritable mirror image.

The 22-year-old student at the U of M’s Asper School of Business guided his team of third Jordan Peters, second Brayden Payette and lead Zack Bilawka to a 7-2 victory against Switzerland in the world final and then had a long layoff before returning to the hack for meaningful games in Morris (losing the final) and Assiniboine Memorial in October.

“We were just talking about how it seems absolutely like forever ago since we won (in Russia). We didn’t really have much time to celebrate because after we got home and got over the jet lag, it was pretty much time to shut the whole province. But we have (that world title) to be thankful for,” said Gauthier. 

Bilawka has since departed to join Winnipeg’s Ryan Wiebe of Winnipeg for his last year of juniors, so a familiar face, Cole Chandler (who played for Gauthier the year previous) was immediately recruited for a 2020-21 season in flux. 

“We really approached things as business as usual, that things would be a go and for getting sponsors because we were going to need more money to travel a lot. We planned on going to a couple of bonspiels in Alberta and Saskatchewan… about half our schedule was outside the province,” said Gauthier. “The four of us were so, so excited to prove ourselves, really bear down and travel a lot.

“It’s really disappointing from a curling perspective. We come hot off of the world juniors and we finally feel like we’ve made a name for ourselves and we’re being given a lot of opportunities that maybe we wouldn’t have been given. We were really excited going into the year.”

Gauthier is 27th on the CTRS standings, although Curling Canada has temporarily halted all point-building with so few events being staged coast to coast. However, the team has designs on nabbing a spot in the Olympic pre-trials. Like Team Zacharias, the prestige of winning a world junior title has landed them a spot in the rescheduled Grand Slam in April.

Gauthier has been to the Viterra men’s championship three times before — losing to Mike McEwen in the 2018 semifinal while playing third for J.T. Ryan — and will be gunning for a solid showing in Selkirk, Feb. 2-7.

Indeed, this is the season to really rub shoulders with the veterans.

“Absolutely, there’s a very distinct shift in our focus. Men’s play was just something extra that we tried to qualify for and make some noise, but now this is our entire focus,” he said.

“We really, really want to play those guys, (Brad) Jacobs, (Kevin) Koe, (Brendan) Bottcher, (Brad) Gushue, (Glenn) Howard and all that stuff because we really have limited experience against them.

“Not only to measure how good we are compared to them to see how much better we need to get, but just to compete at the highest level. It’s something we really want to do. None of the four of us are shy when it comes to wanting to play the best teams. We want that opportunity and we’re looking forward to, hopefully, getting some of that in the new year.”

jason.bell@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPJasonBell