Griffins curling teams looking for more student-athletes ahead of tryouts
MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – If you're into curling and are a MacEwan full-time student, the Griffins would like to hear from you.
Curling coach Tom Kitagawa has scheduled open tryouts for three nights next week (Sept. 11-13 at Leduc Curling Club, 7-9 p.m.) and would love to see more students hitting the pebbled ice.
"We've got lots of opportunity if anyone is interested in coming out," said Kitagawa.
In an ideal world, he would have eight women and eight men on the Griffins curling teams.
The last couple of seasons, though, the numbers have fallen short of that. In fact, the Griffins haven't put a men's rink on the ice in the ACAC loop since 2015. In the 2016-17 season, the Griffins had women's and mixed teams only.
"If it came down to push vs. shove, I'd rather have men's and women's teams instead of a mixed because both of those can go to nationals," he said. "There is no mixed nationals. For players doing all this work on the mixed team there's no big payoff at the end. You go to provincials and it's over."
That said, the potential is there for the Griffins to have all three teams again, if the athletes come out.
"Most of the curlers quite enjoy it," said Kitagawa. "We play in a regular league at the Avonair Curling Club for the men's, women's and mixed.
"It's pretty easy going – we have two regional tournaments, an ACAC Championship and nationals.
"I very seldom have anyone not come back," he added. "It does happen; there's some players who say 'this isn't going the way I want' or maybe the studies have become too much. But for the most part, they seem to quite enjoy themselves."
After team selection, the Griffins will be preparing for their first action of the season – the Fall Regional Nov. 24-26, hosted by Portage College at the St. Paul Curling Club. Also on the docket is the Winter Regional (Jan. 26-28, hosted by Concordia at Avonair) and the ACAC Championship, hosted by UAlberta-Augustana in Camrose (Feb. 16-18, Rose City Curling Club).
Should they qualify for nationals, the Griffins would be playing back in Leduc (Leduc Rec Centre) March 24-28 for the CCAA championship.
If interested in trying out for the Griffins curling teams, contact Kitagawa at curling@macewan.ca and fill out this form.
