Dan Holowaychuk’s excellent adventure starts with a return trip to nationals before going to worlds with the Wade White rink.
The Canadian Senior (50-plus) Curling Championships rock the ice next Saturday in Stratford, Ont., followed by the April 21 to 28 worlds in Oestersund, Sweden for the 2017 national champions.
“We’re kind of excited to go. We’ve waited and the time is now,” said Holowaychuk, the second from St. Albert on the White foursome with Barry Chwedoruk at third and lead George White.
“We’ve probably practiced more this year than we ever have just knowing that we were going somewhere at the end of the year,” Holowaychuk added. “We kind of relaxed the schedule a little bit at the beginning because we knew it would be a long season so we didn’t spiel as much early in the year and kind of put in a little more practice time in the last few months."
An unexpected surprise was the team’s repeat performance at provincials last month at Coaldale as the C qualifiers at northerns for the second straight year.
“We’ve been focusing on the worlds all year but we went into the playdowns to try and win the province and now we’ve got to change focus and get ready and go to Canadians and focus on that and see if we can win that one and then well refocus again for the worlds,” said Holowaychuk, who also curled in the men’s northerns in January as the second on a rink skipped by Chwedoruk.
“We went into the (senior) playdowns obviously wanting to get in some games. The whole year has kind of been focused towards our trip to Europe and now with us getting to go to Canadians again that’s perfect timing for a grueling practice but it’s going to be more than a practice. It’s good to get those games in now.
“Hopefully we can all stay healthy because we’re not spring chickens any more. It’s a week-long affair and you’re not used to playing that much. You play once or twice a week normally and a few games in some spiels so it’s a lot of games and hopefully we won’t have too much trouble getting through that physically.”
The winner represents Canada at the 2019 worlds.
“We met with the national coach that’s going with us to the worlds and he has never had a repeat Canadian team so we’ll hopefully be the first out of the stable to do that,” said Holowaychuk, a St. Albert Curling Club wall of fame inductee in 2014.
The six-time President’s Cup men’s champion in the St. Albert playoffs was also the winning skip at the 1989 Edmonton and area Tournament of Champions.
This year’s nationals is the third for Holowaychuk with White as the skip with the 2013 bronze medallists curling with Doug McLennan of St. Albert and George Parsons when it was a 12-team round robin as Alberta finished 9-3.
Chwedoruk and George White are back for their second nationals.
“At least we know what were getting into over there,” Holowaychuk said. “It’s the comfort of being there. Wearing the Alberta colours and stuff like that will be old hat.
“Fortunately for us we did pretty good for Alberta last year with winning.”
The Alberta reps won nine and lost three in the six-day, 14-team nationals after going 3-3 in pool B for a five-way tie for second spot.
In the final, White stole the winning point in the 7-6 extra-end decision against Howard Rajala of Ontario at Willie O’Ree Place in Frederiction, N.B.
The result was the seventh consecutive win and the second against Rajala, also by the same score in the championship pool. A steal of two in six made it 7-3 for White.
“Your playing a couple games a day and for us older fellows it can kind of be a little bit of a grueling week on you because you’re not used to playing that many,” said Holowaychuk, a “Freedom 55” curler along with White as the team's elder statesmen. “We’re not going to be the oldest guys there by any means but I’m sure every year there are some newer guys coming into it.”
Alberta’s pool B opponents are Ted Butler of Quebec, Al Hackner of Northern Ontario, Mike Ryan of Newfoundland & Labrador, Darrell McKee of Saskatchewan, Pat Paslawski of Yukon and Peter Mackey of Nunavut.
Pool B consists of Bryan Cochrane of Ontario, Terry Odishaw of New Brunswick, Dave Boehmer of Manitoba, Bill Hope of Prince Edward Island, Alan O’Leary of Nova Scotia, Craig Lepine of British Columbia and Glen Hudy of Northwest Territories.
The semifinals and medal finals are March 29.
“Looking at the slate it’s a tough field again with lots of guys with lots of Brier experience. You never know what pool you’re going to end up in but it looks like a favorable pool for us if there is such a thing,” said Holowaychuk, the highly-respected alternate with the legendary Ferbey Four: five-time Alberta champions, four-time Brier winners and three-time world gold medallists as the Alberta Curling Federation’s Team of the Century.
Regardless of the outcome, Team Canada has everything basically finalized for worlds.
“We’ve had a lot of preparation going on. You’re ordering clothing and you’re setting up meetings with coaches and you’re collecting pins and gathering stuff. There are travel arrangements and family planning and stuff like that. We’ve had lots of time to get those things together and that’s kind of the benefit of knowing the whole year ahead of time. I think we would be a little more pressured packed if we were going to the worlds this year right after the Canadians. I don’t know if we would’ve been able to do that had we maybe won one week and had a couple of weeks to go after that,” Holowaychuk said. “We didn’t know we were going to Sweden or where ever it was going to be at until months after we won. There were some hints I guess it was going to be Europe but we didn’t know until it was announced some time after.
“I don’t think they knew where it was going to be held so that was probably one of the big stumbling blocks.”
Holowaychuk and company put themselves in position to duplicate last year’s achievement after polishing off Kurt Balderston of Grande Prairie in consecutive provincial finals.
The 3-2 defensive tilt in 2017 in Dawson Creek was decided with a steal of one in the last end and this year’s championship rematch ended with White’s draw shot to the eight foot and Balderston lying one for the 7-6 victory.
“They’re a good team. It was definitely tough two years in a row,” Holowaychuk said. “We weren’t the first place team to go into the final so we never had the hammer in either one of the games. Last year it was a lower scoring and tighter affair, a little cleaner, and we narrowly won that one. This one we got down a little bit. We got tricked on a couple of spots on the ice. We were throwing some guards and they just didn’t respond like anything else had and we let them have some shots through some holes but we had one big end to get ourselves back into the game. We scored a four ender (in six to make it 6-4 and Balderston replied with two in seven to knot it at six) and ultimately Wade made his draw for the win.
“The ice was breaking down a little bit but we got through it without too much trouble.”
