Team Canada skip John Morris practises on the sheets with his team in Calgary, Alberta on Wednesday, February 25, 2015. They will compete in the 2015 Tim Hortons Brier being held this weekend.Chris Bolin/The Globe and Mail
For the first time in the 86-year history of the Canadian men's curling championships, there will be a Team Canada entry competing in the 2015 Tim Hortons Brier – and that could have been Kevin Koe's spot so easily.
Koe had qualified automatically for this year's event after winning the Brier last year with his team of Pat Simmons, Carter Rycroft and Nolan Thiessen.
Instead, as part of a seismic shift in the curling landscape that followed the end of the Olympic quadrennial, Koe opted to go in a different direction. After four-time Brier champion Kevin Martin retired, Koe formed an all-new, all-star squad that included two members of Martin's old team (Marc Kennedy and Ben Hebert), along with Brent Laing, who previously won two Briers with Glenn Howard.
In the meantime, the three remaining members of Koe's former team inherited the automatic Team Canada Brier berth and recruited John Morris as their skip.
Morris is a two-time Brier champion and also a 2010 Olympic gold medalist, all playing third for Martin, but was actually thinking about taking a year away from competitive curling until this opportunity arose.
Confusing?
Imagine two NHL teams completing a blockbuster deal at the trading deadline and then meeting a month later in the Stanley Cup playoffs, and you have a better idea of how unusual and intriguing is this ebb and flow of high-end curling talent.
The net effect is when the Brier opens Saturday at the Scotiabank Saddledome, the meeting between Koe's old team and his new one is the primary subplot. It also represents a marketing bonanza for the organizing committee, which was heavily promoting the fact that there are two home teams in this year's event, and both call Calgary's Glencoe Club home.
Attendance records could easily fall.
"Considering how things are going in the oil patch, people have a lot of time on their hands," joked Rycroft. "It sounds like it's going to be rocking. People are excited, and can't wait to get there."
According to Rycroft, there is no great mystery as to why the two Alberta teams shuffled their line-ups heading into this season.
"It's a four-year cycle because of the Olympics and all four players have to be on the same page because it's a big commitment," said Rycroft. "Second, I don't care who you are; I'm a big believer that teams can run their course. There's a time frame on teams – you'll see it on other sports too. You can't have the magic forever. Sometimes, it's just time for a change."
For Koe, assembling a new team from scratch meant they had to qualify for the event all over again – and did so by winning the Alberta provincials.
"It's a little ironic, I guess," said Koe. "It's the first time for Team Canada, for the men anyway, and I passed on it. Luckily, with my new team, we managed to qualify, so now everyone's pencilled in that game against them and hopefully both teams are having a good week when it comes. But I'm trying not to put too much emphasis on that game myself."
For good reason, too – because the 2015 competition figures to be more than a two-horse race. The 2014 Olympic champ, Brad Jacobs, is here, representing Northern Ontario, as is the 2006 Olympic champ, Brad Gushue, representing Newfoundland. Koe's brother, Jamie, will skip the Northern Ontario team and Manitoba's Reid Carruthers will pose a significant challenge after upsetting the top-ranked team in the world, Mike McEwen's squad, in the provincial playdowns. Carruthers is making his debut as a skip, but he was part of Jeff Stoughton's 2011 Canadian championship team.
In short, it's a strong deep field, and the pressure to perform will be there from the first draw.
"You really can't afford to have one or two players not playing well at events like this," said Koe. "You just can't. It just becomes a snowball effect – where everyone has tougher shots, or if your skip's not playing good, you don't have much of a chance.
"So chemistry is huge. It's a little different from hockey because it's not really our job, so there's more of a friendship side to it. But at the end of the day, we probably spend 70 or 80 days on the road together, so we put a lot of time and effort into it. It's definitely possible to win if you're not best friends, but for sure, it helps."
This year's field will feature 12 entries – Team Canada, plus the 10 teams with the best combined records over the past three Briers. The 12th spot in the main draw will be determined by a pre-qualifying round featuring Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Yukon.
To Morris, the format change will greatly enhance the competition because it makes the field that much deeper.
"Look at the years when the two best teams might have been from the same province," said Morris. "Kerry Burtnyk, Vic Peters and Jeff Stoughton were in Manitoba, the years Russ Howard and Eddie Werenich and Wayne Middaugh were in Ontario, or the years Kevin Martin and Randy Ferbey were in Alberta. Unfortunately, in all those years, only one team could come out of each province.
"So I think it's just a great thing. It increases the depth and competitiveness of the Brier and makes every game important. Even when two of the teams fighting out for last place are playing, in the past, they might be hitting the Patch the night before, because there wasn't much on the line. Now, there'll be so much on the line; you'll be tuning in because you want to see who comes out on top."
As they start to learn more about each other's style and nuances, Koe believes the best is yet to come for his new team.
"We've had a pretty good year, and obviously we have some real high expectations, just given all of the successes each of us have had on our old teams," said Koe. "But that being said, it does take a while to develop that chemistry and I don't even think we're close to where we can be in a couple of years. I think we'll only get better. We're still kind of learning what this team is going to be like, but I'm really encouraged.
"This was obviously our big goal this year – to get into the Brier. I think we have as good a chance as anybody. We've played really well the past few months and if we get off to a good start, I think we'll be in really good shape."
The challenge for curlers these days is finding a work-life-sport balance. Most still hold down day jobs. Koe has been with Talisman Energy for 14 years. He's multitasking this day – doing an interview as he's watching his nine-year-old daughter play ringette.
"It's just like any sport. If we could get up, go to the gym, practise for a few hours a day, go home – you'd probably be better at it. But that's not what we can do. We've got other priorities in our lives – and I think we're all okay with that."