The field at this week's Canadian Direct Insurance B.C. Men's Curling Championship is comprised of some of the top curlers in the country and around the world.
But that doesn't faze Bill Cameron and his Prince George Golf and Curling Club rink one bit.
The team, skipped by Cameron, with third Cale Rusnell, second Mike Hansen and lead Landon Blundell, opens provincials today at 9 a.m. against defending champ Andrew Bilesky from New Westminster.
The Prince George team is making its first-ever appearance at the triple-knockout bonspiel at the Vancouver Curling Club.
The field includes former provincial, Brier and world champion Brent Pierce of New Westminster and former Brier, world and defending Olympic champion John Morris, who now skips Jim Cotter's Vernon/Kelowna crew.
Morris's team lost to Brad Jacobs in the final of the Roar of the Rings Canadian Olympic trials in December. The Morris rink is also a regular on the World Curling Tour.
"We're pretty excited," said Cameron. "This will be a pretty big learning experience for us and we're going down with nothing to lose. We'll learn as much as we possibly can."
Cameron and his team, all between 29 and 30 years old, have only been together for four years. None of them had ever curled before.
Ever.
"It's a fun sport and we were athletes who just all came from other sports," Cameron said. "We started playing a lot, in bonspiels and in leagues. We took our licks and just got better and better."
They won the northern regionals in December, defeating clubmate Nigel McInnis in a best-of-three format.
Now they're playing in the biggest bonspiel of their curling careers.
They also have full-time jobs, which means they sometimes don't all practice together.
Cameron is an electrician with Intercon Pulp, Rusnell is a jet fuel distribution engineer, Blundell is a sheriff and Hansen is a refrigeration mechanic.
While their practice and playing time was limited leading up to the B.C. Scotties women's championships at the PGGCC last month due to new sheets of ice built from scratch, Cameron's team benefited afterwards.
The ice for the women's provincials was made by renowned ice technician B.J. Gagnon, who is also in charge of the sheets this week in Vancouver.
"The [PGGCC] has spent time maintaining the ice so we've been playing on it since the Scotties was over," Cameron said. "There's five feet of curl on it, it's huge to have B.J.'s ice still here. It's faster. It's a bonus and it makes up for not being on it a lot before the women's."
Cameron knows he and his teammates wouldn't be in Vancouver without support from the community. They've had help for their shirts and jackets from Urban Cabinets, Redwood Plastics, Amigo's Taco Shop, Booster Juice, Custom Stitch and All Pro Plumbing and Heating.
Unlike the women's provincial format of a round-robin, the men's draw is a triple knockout, meaning you must keep winning to advance. Those who wind up with three losses are eliminated. Page playoffs determine the winner.
The skips ranked each other and since Cameron's crew is a bit unknown, they were last.
