The Corryn Brown rink is hoping to earn a spot in the Scotties national championships (Image Credit: Corryn Brown)

By Chad Klassen

B.C. CURLING CHAMPIONSHIPS

Brown rink eyeing another provincial title at home, knows it’s anyone’s tournament

Jan 5, 2022 | 3:51 PM

KAMLOOPS — Corryn Brown has held the provincial curling title for two years now. The Brown rink won the 2020 title, then received an automatic berth to the Scotties with last year’s championships in Kamloops cancelled.

As a hometown skip, Brown has been looking forward to defending her championship at her home rink.

“I think after the two years that we’ve had, it would be really rewarding to be able to play for the defence of our title, and especially in Kamloops. It’s really neat,” said Brown. “The last time we hosted a provincial that we played at, it didn’t end in our favour, so we’re hoping to change the tides on that.”

That was the 2016 B.C. junior curling championships, but much has changed for Corryn Brown and her team. Over the last two years, they’ve emerged on the national stage, not only at the Scotties but also the recent Olympic Curling Pre-Trials and Grand Slam of Curling events.

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The foursome has played in a lot of events during the year — more than most of its opponents — putting Team Brown in a strong position to potentially repeat.

“Yeah we had quite a busy season. We had seven or eight events, travelling the whole time, and played a few events that had 10 ends, whereas I don’t think many of these teams have played 10 ends this season, so that would be a bit of an advantage for sure,” she said. “But it’s just a matter of who comes out firing.”

There are a couple rinks that will challenge Brown for the title, most notably Sarah Wark’s rink. Wark and Brown have met in the last two B.C. championships with the Wark rink winning in 2019 and the Kamloops rink enacting revenge in 2020.

“We love playing against Team Brown. It’s always a good battle,” said Wark, who’s from the Abbotsford Curling Club. “They have had the advantage this year for sure. They’ve played in a ton of events and they’ve played in really big events, and we struggled getting to events this year. There was a lot of things that happened between the flooding and COVID.”

Brown added, “We’ve played them lots in big games. I think that definitely keeps the rivalry going there. We haven’t had a chance to play them a lot as of recent just based on us not playing too much in B.C. and getting caught on different draws at different events. I think it’s always going to be a matchup the media and people are going to make it always a big matchup. I think for us, we take every team as the same. We’re not necessarily coming to play one team over the other.”

To combat the Brown rink’s home-ice advantage, Wark recruited a couple local curlers — Karla Thompson and Amanda Guido.

“I didn’t want them to have too much of an advantage, so I did pick up two Kamloops players,” joked Ward. “I’m hoping they will bring some of the fans [virtually] from Kamloops.”