The next generation of St. Albert curlers are learning to play the sport with rocks and brooms supplied by Marc Kennedy.
The 2010 Olympic gold medallist delivered a full sheet of Lite Rocks for the Little Rocks and 25 BalancePlus brooms for the junior programs to use at the St. Albert Curling Club through funds from the inaugural Kennedy Classic U18 bonspiel in March.
“We raised more money than we thought we were going to so to be able to give back to the juniors and Little Rocks and give them some equipment that they can use to really enjoy the game means a lot to me,” said Kennedy, after assisting with the Little Rocks’ beginner program Sunday afternoon.
“As you travel the country and curling you’re trying to get as many young people involved in the game as possible. There is just so much competition these days for kids in sports. They have so many options and so many choices, which is a great thing, but we want to try and get them to play a sport like curling that they can play their whole life so that’s become a big part for me to give back to a game that’s given me so much and I feel like I can do that by donating some rocks and some brooms and getting the kids the equipment they need to succeed and perform well.”
Kennedy, 34, became a rock star while growing up at the Taché Street facility the legendary Hec Gervais made famous.
“There is a lot of nostalgia here. This is where I started so to be out here with my daughter (Aubrey) teaching her how to curl and seeing a lot of the similarities, it’s a good feeling,” said the three-time Brier winner, two-time world champion and St. Albert Curling Club wall of fame inductee in 2011. “I love this sport so much and she’s taken a keen to it and I love it.”
The Kennedy Classic attracted 40 male, female and mixed rinks and the curlers ranged in age from 10 to 17. The majority of the games were staged in St. Albert and the Jasper Place Curling Club was also used.
“We’re extremely happy with the success of the event and it couldn’t have happened without the great people here at the St. Albert Curling Club and some of them are here today like Leanne Oake and my wife Nicole and Paul Turner. They were the ones that made it a success,” Kennedy said.
The 2017 Kennedy Classic is March 24 to 26. Visit www.stalbertcurling.com for details.
Sunday’s on-ice session marked a rare weekend off from the World Curling Tour for Kennedy, vice-skip as the third for the Kevin Koe rink with lead Ben Hebert and second Brent Laing. After three major competitions the 2016 Brier and world champions are 16-2 and both losses were against Reid Carruthers of Manitoba in the semifinals at the Direct Horizontal Drilling Fall Classic, Oct. 7 to 10 at the Crestwood Curling Club, and quarter-finals at the Canad Inns Classic last weekend in Portage la Prairie.
Team Koe kicked-off the season by winning the AMJ Campbell Shorty Jenkins Classic last month in Cornwall, Ont.
The first Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling event for the Calgary-based rink is the WFG Masters that started Tuesday in Okotoks.
“We’re trying to build up towards these bigger events that are coming up,” Kennedy said. “For us it’s still about trying to get better for those Olympic trials next year (in December at Ottawa). We’re looking forward to the Brier as Team Canada in Newfoundland and we’ve got some big fun events coming up too like the Continental Cup (in January at Las Vegas) and hopefully the (2017) Skins Game but we’re still waiting for it to be announced.”
The Koe lineup will also be defending its Home Hardware Canada Cup championship Nov. 30 to Dec. 4 in Brandon. Last year’s event victory punched the rink’s ticket to the Roar of the Rings as the first of nine qualifiers for the Olympic trials to determine the Canadian men’s team for the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang, South Korea.
“We’ve got about 12 months here to really be at our best before those Olympic trials so we’ll just try and keep getting better and keep trying to win a few big events and hopefully just keep curling well,” said Kennedy, the second on the Kevin Martin rink with Hebert and third John Morris as the 2010 Olympic gold medallists in Vancouver.
“It does seem like a long ways away until you start the process but it goes by very quick,” Kennedy added. “A big focus for us, and we’ve had some experience with this over the years, is just really trying to get better each and every event. You narrow it down to a few events that you try and improve on and change some things. You try and keep a pretty short term focus and hopefully it improves you in the long term but we know it’s creeping up on us quick.”
