Left to Right: Blair Lenton, Allie Iskiw, Chloe Fediuk, Alyssa Nedohin, Myla Plett, Jaedon Neuert, Adam Naugler, Johnson Tao, Zach Davies - Photo Courtesy World Curling Federation

By Lisa Parent

‘Never say die’: Two Alberta teams qualify for World Junior-A Curling Championships

Dec 19, 2023 | 3:27 PM

LOHJA, FI – Canada will have representation in both the women’s and men’s World Junior-A Curling Championships, all thanks to two teams based out of Alberta.

Team Tao (Edmonton, AB) represented Canada in men’s this week for the World Junior B Championships. The event, held in Lohja, Finland, was in part a qualification event for World A’s that will take place in 2024.

The longer qualification route arose from Canada’s lower ranking in last year’s world competition. In 2023, the Canadian men’s team, skipped by Landan Rooney, placed eighth. The women also placed eighth, a team skipped by Emily Deschenes.

To qualify for World A’s, Team Tao had to place top four out of 22 teams at the competition, but they surpassed that goal with a first place finish.

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The Tao rink beat Sweden in the quarterfinals, New Zealand in the semifinals and managed a 7-4 win against the United States in the final.

Snagging that hardware took some grit from the men, after dropping two games during the round robin, sitting on the edge of elimination. It was a five-game win streak after the second loss that brought them a gold medal.

The second on Team Tao, Zach Davies, says it was the team’s “never say die” attitude that pushed them to the top of the podium.

“We try not to let emotion cloud our judgment,” Davies said.

Zach Davies holds up a Canadian flag after winning gold at the World Junior-B Championships

Davies added that the team tried to enjoy each game and celebrate good shots as a way to curb pressure they felt while representing their country.

“There’s a saying where most of the pressure, you just put on yourself and we tried not to do a whole lot of that,” Davies added.

Just a week before the men competed in Finland, a women’s team from Alberta also punched their ticket to the World Junior-A Curling Championships.

Team Plett, based out of Sherwood Park and Airdrie, went undefeated through the preliminary round robin.

Into playoffs, they beat Denmark, Turkey and faced a strong Team China in the finals.

The Plett rink lost to China 6-3, but had already completed the job they had set out to do, which was qualifying for Junior A’s.

“The people here in Canada, they were just cheering us on, they just wanted us to do our best, so it wasn’t really any pressure or standards we had to live up to,” Myla Plett, skip of Team Plett, said.

“Everybody’s just super supportive, sending us messages the whole week, just kind of getting us through the week.”

Fans supporting Team Plett from the stands

If the men’s and women’s team place top six at the upcoming World Junior Championships, the next Canadian team will earn a berth straight to World A’s.

The 2024 World Junior Curling A Championships start Feb. 17, also in Lahja, Finland.