The female curlers from Nunavut can already leave happy when they make their long journey back home. They have done what none of their Nunavummiut peers had ever accomplished before at this level: win a game.
"We definitely came down with a goal to win one game, and we achieved that right away," said team third Christianne West, 16. On Monday, the first day of curling competition, Team Nunavut fell 10-3 to B.C. but bounced back with an historic 8-2 victory over Team Yukon.
"We take a lot out of every game, always learning, even when we win," said team coach Lynn Kreviazuk. "This is our sixth national appearance and we finally reached our goal of a national win."
The rink is skipped by Sadie Wren Pinksen (15), and also features second Katie Chislett Manning (15) and lead Kaitlin MacDonald (16). She is the newcomer to the team that's otherwise been together for many years, despite its youth, and is based at the four-sheet curling facility in Iqualuit. Other than the team's home club, Nunavut only has curling facilities in Cambridge Bay and Rankin Inlet.
The dearth of curling culture that far north makes for challenging development of players, but this rink was quickly identified in childhood as having extra skill so coaching and some travel was provided. The rink has been to P.E.I. for a coaching intensive, and represented Nunavut at several other events.
"This is, I would say, the high-point of our curling career so far," said West, up against girls almost certain to go on to the world stage. They are proving to themselves that they belong among them.
"I am really proud of how we've curled so far, and I hope we keep up this level of play for the rest of the week," said Pinksen.
They do, self-admittedly, have a struggle to find their relationship with the Prince George ice.
"We practice three or four times a week, back home. We work together a lot," said West. "But our ice is definitely different than everywhere else we go to play in Canada. It is so cold in the natural air that the ice inside is really heavy compared to most other places. Our curl is maybe a foot, foot-and-a-half. Here in Prince George it's crazy - like three feet."
That has a large effect on shot selection, draw weight, which tactics they are used to safely using versus what might be a big risk worth taking on the more dynamic surfaces here.
Helping with the mental game is the highly experienced coach Kreviazuk. She was on the gold-medal-winning rink at the 2007 Canada Winter Games, went on to win silver at the 2010 world junior championships, picked up another silver at the Winter Universiade Games in Spain two weeks ago and, with her sister Alison, is a veteran of the famed Rachel Homan rink. She has also been on the Allison Flaxley rink in recent times.
Although Kreviazuk is based in Ottawa, she travels a couple of times a year to Nunavut for dedicated training sessions for the Pinksen rink, and technology is helping more and more to bridge the communication divide.
For most of the time, though, Pinkson and company must rely on helpful adults to develop their game. With the success of these Canada Winter Games - even though there are many more rocks for Team Nunavut to throw this week - there are hopes for more resources to be invested in a team that is near the top of Canada geographically and now also climbing higher up the curling ranks.
