Jefferson Hagen, MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – After a welcome influx of five first-year curling student-athletes, the MacEwan Griffins will be running at full capacity for their final season in the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference.
For the first time since the 2011-12 campaign, the Griffins will have teams competing in all three ACAC divisions – men, women and mixed.
They head into their season-opening competition this weekend – the ACAC Fall Regional at the Lloydminster Curling Club from Friday to Sunday.
"I'm very happy having the ladies, men's and mixed teams again," said head coach Tom Kitagawa. "We have five new players. They've all curled to some degree. I think the interest was there and they came searching for us.
"I had one person I recruited from last year. I went out to one of the competitive bonspiels and Joel (MacDonald) came up and talked to me after his game."
MacDonald will play lead for the MacEwan men's team, which features three returners: skip Riley Ross, third Jordan Geiger and second Brandon Rubisch. They formed three-quarters of a brand-new rink last season which went through its growing pains and missed the ACAC Championship.
Expectations are higher this time around, although the squad is still searching for consistency.
"That's a tough one to pinpoint," said Kitagawa of how the rink might fare this weekend. "One game they play tremendously and the next game not quite so well. I'm hoping truthfully to go 4-2 in the first round. I think that's very realistic. Of course, I'd love to go 6-0."
That will be a tough challenge, however, with at least some members returning from defending Canadian Colleges Athletic Association champion Concordia – ("I don't know how many of the players are back, to be truthful. We'll find out this weekend.") – as well as perennially tough NAIT and a potential strong entry from SAIT.
The Griffins men will open the Fall Regional with Friday matches against Lakeland (3:30 p.m.) and Olds (7 p.m.), continue on Saturday against SAIT (12:30 p.m.) and Red Deer College (4:30 p.m.) and wrap-up Sunday versus NAIT (9 a.m.) and Concordia (12:30 p.m.).
On the women's side, MacEwan will be the favourites this season after returning four of five members from a rink that won a CCAA silver medal last March. Skip Ashton Simard, third Erin Wells, second Andie Kurjata and lead Taitan Hagglund are back, while the squad adds rookie Megan Berg to the mix. They'll be after a CCAA national championship next March in Portage La Prairie, Man.
"They all want the gold medal," said the head coach.
First, Simard's rink will need to get through the ACAC ranks, though. They enter the season as defending champions.
"I'd like to start off on a really strong, positive note," said Kitagawa of this weekend. "They play six games. The ice will be the big factor. We're playing in an out-of-town facility and we don't know what the ice will be like. That's a challenge for everybody, but usually more skilled teams find it a bigger challenge.
"Ideally, we'd like to go 6-0, but 5-1 is probably more realistic because you could have a hiccup game."
The Griffins will open play on Friday versus Concordia (3:30 p.m.) and Red Deer College (7 p.m.), continue on Saturday against UAlberta-Augustana (9 a.m.), NAIT (4:30 p.m.) and Lakeland (8 p.m.) before wrapping up play on Sunday versus Olds (9 a.m.).
MacEwan won the 2018 ACAC mixed championship but didn't have the numbers to ice a team in that division last season. The continuity factor from that squad to this one, though, is Rebecca Bartz, who played third for the 2018 championship mixed rink and will serve as skip in 2019-20.
She's joined by third Brandt Holt, second Brennin Turner, lead Zale Zabolotniuk and alternate Rachael Hansen.
"Rebecca has skipped for a number of years at the competitive junior league level," noted Kitagawa of Bartz, who was a lead/alternate on MacEwan's women's rink last season. "Everyone else on the team except Zale are all first years. So, they're a little bit new to the program. Brandt is actually a third-year business student, but he chose not to curl the first two years because he wanted to focus on his grades."
On Friday, they kick off the Fall Regional against NAIT (3:30 p.m.) and Lakeland (7 p.m.) before heading into Saturday matches versus UAlberta-Augustana (12:30 p.m.) and SAIT (8 p.m.) and finishing up on Sunday against Red Deer College (9 a.m.).
"I do believe they have a legitimate shot at medaling," said Kitagawa. "Whether they're good enough to win gold we'll find out this weekend."
Records from this weekend will carry over to the ACAC Winter Regional, hosted by NAIT at MacEwan's shared home of Avonair Curling Club Jan. 24-26. Following that round-robin competition, the top-four teams in each discipline qualify for the ACAC Championship Feb. 28-29 in Lac La Biche, Alta.
"I believe all three teams have the ability to qualify for the ACAC Championships, it's just about bringing their A game," said Kitagawa.
