Ottawa has a long and proud sport tradition, and in this ongoing series, we will present highlight moments and figures from our local sport history. The Ottawa Sport History Highlight series is presented by the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame, which has welcomed almost 300 inductees dating back to its establishment in 1968. Find out more at OttawaSportHall.ca.
It’s been a quarter-century since John Morris skipped his Ottawa Curling Club rink to their second consecutive Canadian and world junior championship titles, but his father and coach Earle Morris still vividly recalls the details of those matches from 25 years ago like it was yesterday.
John has of course gone on to become one of Canada’s most celebrated curlers of all time, but before twice ascending to the top of the Olympic podium was a time when the stress and drama of competing at national and global championships was all new. And boy was there plenty of it.
“The thing that sticks out in my mind is we were on the mat so many times. It was such a grind,” recounts Earle, who was inducted into the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame this past fall. “But they always found a way to win. We were in tiebreakers at Canadians and tiebreakers in Ontario to make it to Canadians – not at the worlds thankfully, but getting there was awfully challenging.”
On the road to glory, Team Morris faced a number of opponents who would later become Olympic champions as well, such as Brad Gushue, Mark Nichols and Marc Kennedy – a future teammate of John’s. The big wins stick out of course, but Earle remembers the losses quite well too, and what they could have done better in those matches – perhaps the mark of a champion always seeking to be the best.
John’s first trip to the Canadian juniors ended with a defeat in the 1997 final, but the performance was still encouraging for the team that also included Craig Savill, Matt St. Louis and Mark Homan (you may know Mark’s younger sister Rachel).
Andy Ormsby and Brent Laing joined Savill and Morris for their first national junior championship run in 1998. The Ottawa boys went 9-3 in the round robin to finish in a four-way tie for first place. In the playoffs, they beat Manitoba (Mike McEwen) and then host Alberta (Carter Rycroft) in Calgary, where John would eventually make his home and become a firefighter.
Team Morris’s romp to 11 consecutive victories as the home team at the 1998 World Junior Curling Championships in Thunder Bay was a breeze by comparison, and nothing like the challenge they would face in defending their Canadian crown the next season.
With Jason Young taking the place of Ormsby come the 1999 junior nationals in Kelowna, B.C., Team Morris battled to an 8-4 round robin record to finish in a three-way logjam for second place. They survived a 6-5 extra-end tiebreaker with Alberta (Jeff Erickson) to make it into the playoffs and the semifinal against Newfoundland and Labrador (Gushue) went to an extra end as well. Morris prevailed 5-3 in that one and then beat British Columbia (Jeff Richard) 7-3 in the final to clinch a trip to the junior worlds in Sweden.
Switzerland owns the distinction as the only country to beat Morris at the world juniors, but the Canadians avenged their round robin loss with a 6-2 victory in the final to earn their 10th win of the competition and a second consecutive global gold.
“When you’re achieving things like that, at the time you go, ‘Wow, this is quite amazing,’ and you think it’ll probably be a one-off that’s never going to happen again,” reflects Earle. “And then it keeps happening over and over and over again. Now it just makes me realize what a great athlete John was, and what great teams we were able to assemble.”
Savill and Laing went on to claim multiple senior men’s world championships later in their careers as well.
“Those guys withstood the test of time,” Earle underlines. “They had 13 must-win games in those two years to win the world junior championships. It was remarkable, and you knew with that kind of record that these guys were pretty good.
“It wasn’t like they got lucky – time after time, they got those wins that they had to have.”
John has gone on to capture 20 medals at pinnacle national and international championships, and authored likely the most indelible moment in Canadian curling history alongside Kevin Martin, Kennedy and Ben Hebert at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.
With the home crowd belting out the national anthem, John blasted out of the hack just after the final note of O Canada to deliver one of the final takeouts that clinched the gold medal.
“For them to win gold, it still almost feels like a dream that you can’t possibly dream because you’re just asking too much,” Earle beams. “Your home country, your son’s on the team, they win gold medal, and you’re there to watch what they did. It’s just unbelievable.”
John went on to win a second Olympic gold when mixed doubles made its Olympic debut in 2018 alongside Kaitlyn Lawes and went to the 2022 Olympics as well with Rachel Homan.
Earle’s enjoyed quite the career contributing to coaching and development in curling, which he fell in love with while watching his grandfather play (Cliff McLachlan started the only three-generation family to skip teams at the Brier with his appearance in 1933). Earle, who became the first player to represent three different provinces at the nationals while he moved around as a member of the military, was inducted into the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame during the 2016 Brier in Ottawa.
Read More:
2023 Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame Inductee Profile:
Earle Morris (Builder – Curling Coach)
Among Earle’s feats was another Canadian junior crown in that same magical 2010 year as coach of Rachel Homan’s rising Ottawa Curling Club rink.
Earle will be rooting for another local team to make its mark when the 2024 Canadian U18 Curling Championships return to the nation’s capital from Feb. 5-10 at the RA Centre and Hunt Club.
“It’s so good to get it back again,” says Earle, who served as chair of the last Canadian Junior Championships held in Ottawa in 2003. “It’s going to be wonderful. Juniors bring all sorts of energy to the game and curling is always blessed with really great volunteers to bring the events to life.
“Hopefully we’ll have a good Ontario team and hopefully we’ll even have an Ottawa team that can represent us well.”
Learn more about our local sport history on the Ottawa Sport Hall of Fame’s website at OttawaSportHall.ca.