HIGH ACHIEVERS: Owen Nicholls scrambled to return to Canadian men’s U18 curling championship

By Martin Cleary

Owen Nicholls is a first-year student at Carleton University, majoring in psychology with a minor in curling, curling and more curling.

The Haliburton, ON., student-athlete is enjoying his academic courses, but he’s balancing his classroom studies by playing on three different curling rinks this season.

This past weekend was a good example of how hectic life can be for the newest member of the Ottawa curling community.

On Thursday, he travelled to Guelph for the OUA provincial championships as the lead for the Carleton Ravens. But the team knew he couldn’t stay for the full three-day competition.

On Saturday, while the Ravens were going 3-1 in the round-round and reaching the quarterfinals, Nicholls, 18, was being driven back to Ottawa by his mother for the Canadian U18 curling championships, which started Sunday and runs through Saturday at the R.A. Curling Centre of Excellence and the Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club.

Nicholls needed to be back in Ottawa that evening for the opening event of the nationals, especially since he was the skip of the Ontario No. 2 team along with third Drew Zettler of Markham, second Tye McCutcheon of Elmvale, ON, and lead Kole O’Connor of Orillia, ON. Dylan Stockton of London, ON., is the team alternate, while Sierra Sutherland coaches the rink out of the Rideau Curling Club.

“It definitely has been a lot to plan and has been busy,” Nicholls said in a phone interview, while returning to Ottawa on Saturday. “I love curling. I wanted to show my commitment to the Carleton team.”

Nicholls, who also plays lead on an active men’s U20 team skipped by Wyatt Wright, has tried to make the most of his season of change, where he is attending a new school, which is almost 300 kilometres from his home, and is a member of three new curling teams.

“Again, it definitely has been a busy season. When I moved to Ottawa, I had a good support group, including my sister lives here,” he added.

When Nicholls was planning his 2023-24 curling season, his original focus was on the U20 level. But then he realized he still had one year of U18 eligibility remaining, after missing the playoffs at 2-4 during the 2023 Canadian championships with skip Kyle Stratton.

And with Ottawa playing host to the 2024 national U18 championships, the Ontario championship and a provincial qualifier, Nicholls decided to see if he could pull together a team at the last minute.

“We haven’t had much of a season,” Nicholls admitted. “The team only came together in late November to play in an Ontario (championship) qualifying event.”

Several months ago, O’Connor reached out to Nicholls on social media to learn more about playing competitive curling. When Nicholls was scrambling to assemble his U18 team, he remembered his exchange with O’Connor.

In late November, there aren’t a lot of curlers looking for teams, but O’Connor committed to the Nicholls team. O’Connor started recruiting, knew McCutcheon from his high school days in the Gravenhurst area and brought him into the fold.

Nicholls contacted Zettler, who was heading to Ottawa for baseball and decided to tack on a curling assignment.

“It was quite the hustle to get playing,” said a relieved Nicholls, who won a bronze medal with the Stratton rink at the 2023 Canada Winter Games. “There was a lot of networking and it happened in about 1½ weeks. We confirmed our team in the second last week of November.”

On the last weekend of November, Team Nicholls met in Orillia for its first and only practice session, which was one week before the Ontario championship qualifying event on Ottawa Hunt club ice.

Team Nicholls came together quickly and successfully, winning all three games for a berth in last month’s Ontario men’s U18 championship, which was staged at the RCMP Curling Club.

With more than a month’s preparation to their credit, Nicholls finished second in the eight-team, round-robin provincials at 5-2 and earned a berth in the playoff round.

In the semifinals, Nicholls defeated Evan MacDougall of the Hamilton Victoria Curling Club 6-4 and advanced to the A final. But Tyler MacTavish of the Kitchener-Waterloo Granite Curling Club needed only seven ends for a 6-3 win to seize the first of two Ontario berths in the Canadian championship.

Nicholls met MacDougall for a third time, second time in the playoffs, in the B final and captured the Ontario No. 2 position for the nationals with a 10-5 victory, which ended after seven ends. Scoring five in the second end, two in the fourth and three in the seventh qualified the Nicholls squad for nationals.

“Part of our success is attributed to other teams looking over us as not being competitive,” Nicholls explained. “We had a lack of experience as two players had never played competitive. But they impressed me by making a lot of shots. We were underdogs going in.

“They are very, very adaptable and coachable. I love this team. They show a lot of character and are easy to get along with.”

Becoming the second Ontario men’s representative at nationals was a marathon 12-hour day for the Nicholls rink.

“It was a lot to fit in one day,” said Nicholls, who is skipping a team for the first time in three years. “They did quite well and I was very impressed. It was their first time playing three games in one day.

“We were all a little upset after the A final, but we knew we had a second chance to get there.”

Team Nicholls made it to nationals, but if it hopes to become one of the top four teams in its pool and advance to the playoff round, it will likely have to win its final two matches.

Using the hammer in the eighth end on Tuesday night, Nicholls scored one for a 7-6 win over New Brunswick No. 2 Michael Hughes and lifted his team’s record to 2-2 with two games remaining.

In its opening match Sunday, Nicholls scored three in the second and fourth ends, which led to a 9-3 decision over Northern Ontario No. 1 Kamdyn Julien.

But Nicholls dropped his next two games, as Prince Edward Island No. 1 Isaiah Dalton stole one in the eighth and ninth (extra end) for an 8-7 win, and Saskatchewan No. 1 Dylan Derksen broke open a 2-2 tie after four ends by scoring five in the fifth end and cruising to a 9-5 victory after seven ends.

In the women’s draw, Ontario champion Dominique Vivier of the Ottawa Hunt improved her Pool B-leading record to 3-0 with a 5-4 extra-end victory over Alberta No. 2 Abby Whitbread. Vivier stole one point in each of the fifth and sixth ends for a 4-2 advantage before Whitbread counted singles in the seventh and eighth ends to force an extra end.

Pool A leader Ava Acres of the RCMP Curling Club moved to 3-0, after a decisive 8-4 win over Northwest Territories’ Reese Wainman. Acres scored five in the first end and two in the seventh to end the match.

Curling Canada’s national U18 championships involves 42 teams – equally divided between men and women. Round-robin play for each gender will continue until Thursday morning and the top four teams in each of the three pools will advance to the playoff round.

The R.A. Centre of Curling Excellence, which was a hockey arena until three years ago, received $100,000 in funding from the Ontario Sport Hosting Program to help stage the national championships.

“The funds awarded for this event will be used to support objectives that build partnerships, engage youth, develop officials and volunteers in our community and continue to improve Ottawa’s ability to deliver national and international amateur sport events,” said a Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sports press release.