HIGH ACHIEVERS: Emma Artichuk making big strides in women’s curling; Gee-Gees earn four OUA men’s basketball honours

By Martin Cleary

Emma Artichuk is only two years removed from her junior curling career, but she’s playing like an accomplished veteran in the women’s open competition.

Her recently-completed competitive 2024-25 campaign is a perfect example of how she has quickly adjusted to the higher level of play and has positioned herself as one of the skips of the future for Canadian curling.

A fifth-year Wilfrid Laurier University student-athlete, who is in the first year of the teacher’s college program, Artichuk made a dramatic debut at the U Sports national women’s curling championship.

Not only did she guide her Golden Hawks team to a fifth national women’s university curling title, but also her undefeated rink of third Sarah Bailey, second Scotia Maltman, lead Tori Zemmelink and alternate Logan Shaw made it a convincing victory by winning nine consecutive pool and playoff games.

The Artichuk rink qualified for the Canadian championships by placing second at the OUA curling finals and posting a 5-2 record overall.

But before the OUA and U Sports final competitions, Artichuk took her young club team (average age in the early 20s) of third Megan Smith, second Jamie Smith, lead Lauren Rajala and alternate Scotia Maltman to Thunder Bay for the Northern Ontario women’s championship and a potential berth in the Scotties Tournament of Hearts nationals.

The result for Artichuk was so close, but yet so far. After three rinks finished the round robin tied at 5-1, Artichuk’s Northern Credit Union Curling Club rink was placed first overall and given a bye to the final.

Team Artichuk showed the potential to head to its first Scotties by leading 2-0 after the first end, 3-1 after three and 4-2 after five ends. But the experienced Krista McCarville rallied her troops by taking one in the sixth and stealing one in each of the seventh and eighth ends for a 5-4 advantage.

Artichuk evened the match in the ninth end by scoring one. But McCarville won her 11th Northern Ontario title by drawing her final stone to the four-foot ring for the decisive point.

“It (this season) has been awesome,” Artichuk said in a phone interview on Thursday. “Obviously, my university team winning nationals is everything that we could have hoped for and worked towards. It was a dream come true.

“For my club team, this is my second year out of junior and we were one shot away from the Scotties. We’re getting our feet wet in the women’s competition. To be that close, is awesome.”

Artichuk joined the Sudbury-based Northern Credit Union team for the 2024-25 season as its import player. That will change for 2025-26 as Megan Smith has left the team and has been replaced by Evelyn Robert. The team will compete out of Southern Ontario next season and chase a Scotties’ berth at the Ontario championships.

“We knew the McCarville rink was the team to beat as it has represented Northern Ontario the last few years,” said Artichuk, who stamped a ‘super awesome’ label on the team’s overall result. “We didn’t know how we matched up against the rest of the rinks, but our goal was to get to the final.

“The final was completely back and forth. We didn’t have the hammer in the last end. There was tons of pressure. You couldn’t ask for a better final. We couldn’t ask for more. It came down to one rock. We gave a strong performance all week.

“The team played the best it has played all year. It was really hard work, but it paid off. We had great team dynamics and chemistry and our coach Sean Turriff was amazing. He knew how to get us in the right mindset.”

Artichuk carried that positive momentum from the Northern Ontario championships in January into the university season. Unlike other university sports, curling doesn’t have a regular season schedule leading into a provincial championship.

The Golden Hawks competed in three exhibition events, which gave Artichuk’s team about a dozen matches to prepare for provincials. The players used their time well, winning all 12 matches, allowing only 12 points against and displaying an impressive offence.

“We had high expectations at the OUAs, won the silver medal and qualified for the U Sports championship,” explained Artichuk, who won the OUA title in 2022 and reached the quarterfinals in 2024.

Artichuk started the 2024-25 season as the only returning player on the Laurier women’s team from the previous year.

“I would definitely say we had a really strong team, never a doubt,” she said confidently. “But if you told me we would go undefeated at the U Sports nationals, I wouldn’t believe you because there were so many good teams there.

“Going into the U Sports nationals, I told the girls we can win this thing. It won’t be easy. But going undefeated was an absolute dream. We couldn’t do better.”

Team Artichuk placed first in its round-robin pool at 7-0 and surged to the U Sports title by defeating Allyson MacNutt of Dalhousie University 9-4 in the semifinals and Rachel Steele of McMaster University 5-4 in the final.

“Everyone worked so hard. We had team chemistry, we’re all close friends and we all get along,” Artichuk explained.

There are only a few recreational mixed doubles matches remaining in Artichuk’s curling schedule for this season before she heads to North Bay to serve as one of the four coaches at the U-15 RockFest East camp March 21-23.

She was invited along with Bobby Ray, Dustin Mikush and Laura Forget to provide on-ice support for this youth development opportunity for U-15 curlers from Ontario and Quebec.

“The sport has given me so much. I like to give back,” said Artichuk, who also spends one week each summer working at the Trillium Curling Camp in Waterloo.

GEE-GEES SCORE BIG WITH FOUR OUA MEN’S BASKETBALL HONOURS

The University of Ottawa Gee-Gees captured one individual award and three all-star honours Thursday, when the OUA announced its best players for the 2024-25 men’s basketball regular season.

Jacques-Melaine Guemeta was selected the defensive player of the year and earned a berth on the conference’s third all-star team.

The anchor of the Gee-Gees’ defence, which allowed the fewest points in the OUA at 65.9 per game, Guemeta consistently covered the top players on the opposing team. Ottawa had the OUA’s best defensive efficiency rating, forced the lowest opponent field-goal percentage of 34.9 a game and had the lowest three-point percentage at 26.2 a game.

In 22 games, Guemeta also made 38 steals and was fifth in the OUA defensive rebounding column with 104.

The OUA all-star rosters also included Dragan Stajic, Ottawa, first team; Xavier Spencer, Carleton University Ravens, second team; Ankit Choudhary, Ottawa, second team; and Owen Kenney, Ottawa, all-rookie team.