West Shore supporters may be seeing double at the BC Winter Games with not only two Juan de Fuca curling teams, but also two pairs of siblings.
Paul Henderson, 16, and his younger brother Timothy, 14 have secured their Team Henderson in the winter games. Paul, the team’s skip has been once before but for the rest of the team members it’s their first time.
“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, but for me it’s twice,” Paul said.
The BC Winter Games are in Vernon from Feb. 23 to 26.
Timothy plays lead, Benton Boychuk-Chorney, 13, plays second and Duncan Silversides, 13, is third. Jacob Zorn, 13, plays both lead and second.
Team Henderson is a five-person team and the players rotate positions, so they all get a chance to play.
“We have five very talented young men, we didn’t want to strengthen any other team (by having a four member team),” said coach Len Stewart.
While four of the member have never been to the winter games before, they have all been to provincials.
Duncan, Boychuk-Chorney and Zorn all recently took silver ion the provincials this year.
Duncan’s mother Christine Nicholls, won’t just be cheering him at the games, her daughter’s team has also been added to the winter games roster.
Katherine Silversides, 16, and plays on Team Van Osch.
“Watching two kids play is stressful, I have to watch both kids play simultaneously most of the time,” Nicholls said.
Both boys and girls team earned a spot in the BC Winter Games after coming first in their divisions in Zone 6, at Jan 6- 8 at Cowichan Rocks Curling Club.
“With my brother coming too it’s going to be a lot of fun,” Katherine said. “We have no quarrels. I play with him and against him all the time.”
Team Van Osch, with skip Marika Van Osch, lead Sydney Brilz, second Katherine, and third Dallyce Gillespie are all gearing up for the competition.
The winter games is different from provincials because many other winter sports teams will be competing in other events such as hockey and biathlon.
“At the winter games you get to see all the other sports,” said Timothy adding provincial competitions are organized individually for each sport.
When the teams aren’t curling during the games, they hope to watch the other events and cheer on other Zone 6 teams.
“Paul’s strategy is to cheer for the girl’s hockey team and so they come over and cheer for us,” said Stewart with a chuckle.
For Timothy he just wants people to know that curling is a sport. “There is mental preparation and you have to practise just like you would any other sport,” Timothy said.
“It’s just as hard as hockey,” said Boychuk-Chorney.
For every game the boys’ play, they practise for six hours.
Team Van Osch has never made to provincials before and the girls are busy training on and off the ice.
“We going for a lot hikes and walks and mentally preparing ourselves too,” Brilz said.
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