Dan Holowaychuk is still vibrating from the aftershock of winning the world senior men’s curling championship with the Wade White rink.
“It’s a pretty good feeling,” a revved-up Holowaychuk told the Gazette on Monday morning upon returning to St. Albert after Saturday’s gold-medal game at Ostersund Arena in Sweden.
“We didn’t really sleep much the first night because there was a little bit of celebrating and then it was an early flight out in the morning. I tried to get back to being acclimatized so I pulled an all-nighter and just stayed up all the time until we got back home.”
White, third Barry Chwedoruk, Holowaychuk at second and lead George White are the 10th Canadian team to stand on top of the medal podium at the 17th annual senior (50-plus) worlds and the ninth win in 10 games was the 8-2 rout in six ends against Mats Wrana, the two-time defending champion and home-country favorite.
It was Canada's first senior men's gold medal since Wayne Tallon was victorious in 2014.
“We were expecting a big game but it was just a couple of missed shots by their skip and they were kind of done,” Holowaychuk said. “We got them for a steal of three in the first end and a steal of three in the second end so it was like, OK, let's just bang things around and make sure we don’t get ourselves in any trouble and then they kind of quit after six.
“It was anticlimactic that way but it was still an adrenaline rush.”
Canada swept through the playoff round with wins of 5-3 against Wales (4-3), 6-5 against Norway (6-1) and 9-3 against Scotland (6-3) before “we kind of put our heads down” against Sweden.
“They had a good week too. They were one of the top teams, Holowaychuk said of the 8-2 Swedes. “But when the playoff round come around we were pretty dominating. We were firing on all cylinders. Even our coach (Bill Tschirhart) said he really hadn’t seen anything like that before where we dominated so much in the playoffs.”
Twenty-eight countries were divided into four pools at worlds and Canada was second in pool B playing Switzerland (6-0), Germany (4-2), England (3-3), France (2-4), Turkey (1-5) and Belgium (0-6).
“In our pool there were a couple of really good teams and then a couple of games where you’ve still got to play and you wouldn’t expect to lose those so we got a little bit loose in those games and weren’t playing our best but we just kind of retooled it for the playoffs," Holowaychuk said.
In the 5-4 loss to the Swiss, “We outplayed them,” Holowaychuk said. ”In the end we had a draw for the win and we slipped a little deep into the house and that one was a measurement and they won.
“We were kind of on the wrong side of the inch in the game but we knew we were playing good.”
The level of competition was interesting with so many countries represented at worlds.
“There were some countries that you didn’t think would have a team in there but a bunch of Canadians moved there, stuff like that, and that’s what we were finding,” Holowaychuk said. “When you sit down and have a drink with them after there would be one guy who could speak pretty good English and could translate for the rest of the team.
“It’s a very social feeling there too because a lot of these guys are there year after year after year so they know each other really well but we felt very befriended by everyone there. It was a good group of people.”
The White foursome qualified for worlds as the 2017 national champions after winning Alberta.
“It’s hard enough to even get out of the north, let alone the province and out of the country,” said Holowaychuk, 55.
Last year the 2014 St. Albert Curling Club wall of fame inductee celebrated his first Canadian championship since the Ferbey Four era as the alternate for the five-time Alberta winners, four-time Brier champions and three-time world gold medalists as the Alberta reps stole the winning point in the extra end of the final against Howard Rajala of Ontario.
“It was a long season after that waiting to go to worlds,” Holowaychuk said. “We had a slower start than normal for the season, not a lot of bonspiels, but we were fortunate to get lots of games in the playdowns too that helped tune us up for it.”
A repeat performance at provincials in February sent Holowaychuk to his third senior nationals in six years with White as the skip, while Chwedoruk and George White attended their second nationals.
Alberta finished tied for fifth at 6-4 in the championship pool after starting off nationals at 5-1.
The winner was Bryan Cochrane of Ontario, the runner-up at worlds last year.
“We definitely didn’t play near as well at nationals as we did at worlds,” Holowaychuk said. “Basically it was one game against Cochrane that was kind of a last rock thing and if we win that one we're in the playoffs and they’re out.”
As for worlds, Sherry Anderson of Regina was the women’s gold medallist and the world mixed doubles was also staged at the same time as the senior championships and the Canadian duo of Laura Crocker and Kirk Muyres captured bronze.
“We left a good impression for Canadians over there. We were very sociable,” Holowaychuk said. “We had a dominating force in the crowd which didn’t hurt. They were making lots of noise for us and supporting us well and we supported them too.”
Worlds got off to a rocky start for Holowaychuk during the first practice session trying out the new Team Canada brooms.
“I was sweeping pretty hard to see if I could get the rock to move and it snapped on me. Luckily it didn’t break right in half, it kind of bent over, and I fell right on top of it with my chest and I scraped my arm all up the side and got a big bruise,” Holowaychuk said. “It kind of knocked the wind out of myself and while lying on the ice I was like, well this is a tough start. It can only get better.”
A provincial three-peat is still a strong possibility for White and his rinkmates in next year's playdowns.
“There was no talk of it not happening but we’re not getting any younger either. Everybody has got their wraps and their lotions for the knees and there is only so many pills you can take,” Holowaychuk said. “Nobody got tested at worlds but they did check our brooms.”
