Two members of Newfoundland and Labrador’s reigning junior men’s curling champions will be taking on the world in 2021.
Ryan McNeil Lamswood and Joel Krats have been named to Canada’s team that will compete at the next world juniors to be held in Beijing, China.
They will join three members of the current Alberta junior men’s champions on the Canadian rink.
The melding was made necessary by a decision by Curling Canada to move the dates of the national junior championships from January to mid-March so as to extend the junior curling competitive season across the country. Since the world junior championships are held in late February, it means from now on, Canada will be represented by the winners of the previous year’s national crowns.
However, since that change won’t take affect until 2021, Curling Canada had to come up with a transition plan to provide representation for Beijing next February. It was based primarily on results of the 2020 Canadian juniors, held last Langley, B.C.
It was there that the Newfoundland and Labrador men’s team, skipped by Daniel Bruce and also including lead Nathan King, finished as runner-up to Jacques Gauthier’s Manitoba rink.
Had Bruce and King been age-eligible next year, they would have also been members of Team Canada in China, but their junior careers are done.
That means McNeil Lamswood, who was third for the Bruce rink, and Krats, who played second, will be joined by Albertans Ryan Jacques, Gabriel Dyck and Desmond Young. Alberta, with Jacques skipping, finished fourth at the most recent Canadian juniors. No members of the third-place team from Saskatchewan are eligible to play juniors next season.
McNeil Lamswood is a Stephenville native who attends Memorial University and has been part of five provincial junior men’s champions. Krats, who is from Labrador City but attends Mount Pearl Senior High School, is a first-time N.L. junior champion.
The Bruce rink curled of the Re/Max Centre in St. John’s. Bruce and King, who are both from Corner Brook, also attend Memorial.
The 2021 world junior championship, which will serve as the test event for curling at the 2022 Winter Olympics, will be held at the iconic Water Cube in Beijing. The venue is in line to make history as it will have hosted events at both the Summer and Winter Olympics; the Water Cube was home to aquatic events at the 2008 Olympic Games.
Canada will be defending champions in both the men’s and women’s competitions next year, with Gauthier’s rink and the women’s entry skipped by Mackenzie Zacharias, also of Manitoba, having won both gold medals at the 2020 worlds earlier this month in Russia.
Twitter: @telybrendan