The U16 boys curling team is hoping to medal at the B.C. Winter Games in Kamloops next week. The team started the season aiming to be competitive, but now that have all the tools to win games and make a run at a medal.
Team Drought from Juan de Fuca and Kerry Park is the only team representing Zone 6 (Vancouver Island-Central Coast) for the Games as there is only one berth for Zone 6.
This is the first B.C. Games for all four teammates - skip, Sampson McNeill, second, Cohen Dawson, lead, Anthony Budden, and third, Zack Drought. Budden tried out for the Winter Games two years ago, when he was 12 years old but his team placed third on the Island, and only one berth got the nod.
There were no tryouts for the U16 curling team, the boys formed the team on their own. They are all members of the JDF Curling Club and Budden and McNeill knew each other from the Greater Victoria Curling Club. Each team member got his start in curling around the same time, all between the ages of seven and 11.
Coach Len Chilibeck said kids can start as early as eight, but 10 years old is usual for them to take up curling. He has coached McNeill for half a year last year, but the rest of the team is new to him.
McNeill, Dawson and Budden got their start in curling after watching the World Men’s Curling Championships that came to Victoria in 2013. McNeill thought it looked easy, “but it’s actually not,” he laughed.
The hardest part about being the skip is having patience and guiding his teammates to get the stone where it needs to be, he said.
Drought watched his older brother curl and his mom signed him and his sister up three years ago. His finds enjoyment in strategizing and camaraderie with his teammates.
“You have to be a very tight-knit group in order to do really well in this sport and I think that’s what we really have going for us going into B.C. Winter Games,” he said.
Budden’s mom, Sandy, said the boys love playing together. The team won’t be playing in the Games together next year, but they want to stay together and enter U18 and U21 tournaments, competing against much older competition, to gain experience playing at a higher level.
Coach Len Chilibeck is confident the team can make the medal round, but what happens from there is anybody’s game. Chilibeck has been around curling since he was a baby when his Mom was a competitive curler and used to bring him to the rink with her. He coached his daughter when she won the B.C. Winter Games in 1994 and went to the Canada Winter Games, and he also won Coach of the Year honors in B.C. in 1998 and Canadian coach when his team went to Nationals.
Safe to say this team is in good hands. A completely voluntary role, he loves teaching kids to curl and is invested in keeping the sport alive.
The team is scheduled to arrive in Kamloops at 11 p.m. Wednesday evening.