We’ve all seen Jamie Koe and Margot Flemming do their thing at several national curling championships over the years.
But the pair decided to take the plunge and play a version of the sport they never have before.
The Canadian Mixed Doubles Curling Championship is happening in Sudbury, Ont., this week and the duo stepped up to represent the NWT. They started out on Tuesday against the team of Lauren Wasylkiw and Shane Konings of Ontario and won by a score of 8-5. But they haven’t as lucky since as they had lost four straight as of Thursday afternoon.
However, their fortunes changed on the final day of round-robin play Friday as they won both of their contests: an 8-7 victory over Tracy Fleury and Tanner Horgan of Northern Ontario and an 11-6 triumph over Adam Bukurak and Stephanie Bukurak of Saskatchewan.
Going into the meet, neither of them had ever played the format before.
“We’ve watched mixed doubles in the past and we’re comfortable playing together, so we’re hoping to put on a good show,” said Koe on Tuesday morning.
Mixed doubles curling was invented in 2001 by Warren Hansen, who was working with Curling Canada at the time. He designed it to be one of the disciplines at the Continental Cup event, which features North America versus the world.
Game play is much different from regular curling in that only five rocks are thrown in each end instead of eight. One player on the team throws the first and fifth stones and the other throws the ones in between. Throwing positions can rotate each end during game play if the team members choose to do so.
Before each end of play begins, two rocks are set up at the other end of the sheet: one rock in the rings and the other as a guard, both aligned perfectly in the center of the sheet. The team who didn’t score the previous end gets to choose where they want their rock to be placed at the beginning of the next end. If that team wants to keep last rock, their rock is placed in the back four-foot ring of the house. Your opponent then places their rock in the other position, whether that be the guard or in the house.
