Just four years ago, West St. Paul’s Reid Carruthers helped set up Canada’s Olympic gold medal in Mixed Doubles curling.
Carruthers had teamed up with Joanne Courtney, then the second for Ontario’s Rachel Homan, to win the 2017 Canadian Mixed Doubles Curling Championship. Then, the pair was under pressure to earn enough points at the Worlds to ensure that Canada would have an entry into the Olympics. They did, leading the way for Manitoba’s Kaitlyn Lawes and Ontario’s John Morris to win Olympic gold in that discipline.
Carruthers is back in this year’s Canadian Mixed Doubles Curling Championship in the Calgary bubble with a new partner, Selena Njegovan.
“Joanne Courtney had her baby and was going to take a year off Mixed Doubles, so I asked Selena,” Carruthers said from Calgary, where he has remained since competing at the Brier as third for Mike McEwen. “Connor (Njegovan, her husband) had suggested it to me in the dressing room during one of the Slams. He said, ‘I can’t play with her, we’d fight too much.’ Connor is very intense on the ice.”
Connor plays lead for Manitoba’s Jason Gunnlaugson.
“She’s a heck of a shooter and I’ve known her for years,” Carruthers said. “She’s even been an instructor at my curling camp. We tried to play in an event last year, but that got cancelled. Then, we signed up for one or two spiels in the fall, but they got cancelled (due to the pandemic), too. So, we’re going to be learning on the fly.”
While Carruthers is well-versed in Mixed Doubles, Njegovan has never played it before.
“It’s a tough field and we’re just gonna play as well as we can and see what happens,” said Njegovan, who was named to the second all-star team at the Scotties while at third for Chelsea Carey (subbing for East St. Paul’s Tracy Fleury).
Almost half of the players in the 35-team field are either Manitobans or played for various four-person Manitoba teams.
“It seems like we’re always playing Manitobans,” joked Njegovan, referring to the five ‘Toban teams at the Scotties.
Njegovan returned home from the Scotties and isolated for two weeks, so she could not practice.
Carruthers has remained in the Calgary bubble, still under all of the restrictions the curlers have had to follow. So, there was no sightseeing or getting out on the town.
“I’ve just been sitting on my balcony getting sunshine, walking around the hotel parking lot and getting into chat rooms and Zooms,” he said. “I can’t wait to get back on the ice.”
The championship started Thursday.
BRIER REFLECTIONS: Carruthers said the Mike McEwen team just got off to a bad start. “It was a tough field and we weren’t sharp early,” he said. “Losing the first game put us in tough and a couple of breaks didn’t go our way. And we just didn’t play with as much confidence as we did at the last Brier.”
BITERS: Tracy Fleury is planning to play in the first Grand Slam event to be played after the men’s world championship, Selena Njegovan said. Tracy’s husband will look after her baby, remaining in Sudbury. Chelsea Carey will skip the squad in the second Slam, Njegovan said … Joanne Courtney, by the way, is also competing in the Mixed Doubles, teaming up with Darren Moulding, third for Alberta Brier champion Brendan Bottcher (who’s also playing in it).
Jim Bender has more than 30 years experience as a sports reporter. He writes on a variety of sports topics for the Selkirk Settler Times.
