Corryn Brown during a practice session on Tuesday at the Kamloops Curling Club (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Chad Klassen

B.C. CURLING CHAMPIONSHIPS

B.C. curling championships begin in Kamloops, format change due to COVID

Jan 4, 2022 | 2:42 PM

KAMLOOPS — The B.C. Men’s and Women’s Curling Championships are underway at the Kamloops Curling Club, an event that was initially postponed before receiving a special exemption from the province.

It’s not the championship the curlers envisioned — without fans at the curling club downtown — but they are all simply thankful to have the opportunity to compete for a provincial title.

“It’s awesome to be here. With the on-again-off-again, it’s kind of our world nowadays,” said Vernon-based Jim Cotter who grew up in Kamloops. “I was preparing on Christmas Day to go to the Olympic Trials for the mixed doubles and it got the call that it was cancelled, then this was back on.”

Kamloops skip Corryn Brown added, “Obviously it’s very much a fluid situation with COVID. It can definitely switch things up on you in an instant, but we’re excited to have the opportunity right now and roll with the punches.”

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The championship seemed dead in the water when Dr. Bonnie Henry cancelled all tournaments on Dec. 17, but organizers received an exemption over the holidays from the provincial government to go ahead with the B.C. championships.

“Any sports event that leads to a national championship is able to still take place in British Columbia,” said Curl BC competitions manager Will Sutton. “So because these two events, the B.C. Scotties and the B.C. Men’s Championship, lead to the Brier and the Canadian Scotties.”

In order to get the green light from the province, organizers had to make adjustments to the COVID protocols, including no fans. Curl BC says it’s losing out on 184 ticket packages that were purchased, amounting to about $9,000 in revenue.

However, one of the biggest changes to the championship is the format, going from round robin to a triple-knockout.

“The number of interactions we would’ve had with that type of [round robin] format was quite a few, so we went to the triple-knockout for a number of reasons, mainly to limit the number of interactions between the athletes here taking part in the event,” said Sutton.

There are 20 teams, 12 on the men’s side and eight on the women’s side. There are 13 players with Kamloops connections, including Brown and Cotter. Another is Cierra Fisher, the younger sister of Sam Fisher, the lead on Team Brown. She’s playing third this week on Team Reese-Hansen.

If both teams win their first two games, the Fisher sisters would meet.

“It’s a great opportunity. Those ladies have a lot going for them and they’re an amazing team. Just to be able to play against them is fun and it’s great to go out there. There’s no expectations and we all get to see each other and have fun and be competitors as well as friends,” said Fisher.

Brown added, “It would be really fun. I actually work with Cierra. I’ve known her since she was eight years old, so it goes back a long way. It would definitely be neat to play her. She’s on the other side of the draw from us, but depending on where things fall we could definitely play her.”

Games can be seen live on Curl BC’s YouTube channel.