More than a stone’s throw

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This article was published 15/01/2020 (1555 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

At the Deer Lodge Curling Club on Thursday night, everybody seemed to be asking the same question.

“Are those guys actually from New Zealand?”

Brett Sargon, Garion Long and Benjamin Frew were on the ice on the opening night of the Manitoba Open decked out in New Zealand curling uniforms and team jackets, but spectators were still questioning if the team really made the trip from the opposite end of the world.

Can you blame them?

While Winnipeggers were bundled up in their warmest winter wear and plugging their cars in, the city of Auckland, where Sargon, Long and Frew are from, was enjoying a beautiful, sunny 24 C summer day.

So what the heck are these guys doing here? Well, it turns out the trio of Kiwis aren’t here to just throw a couple rocks and get a small taste of Canadiana.

Sargon, 28, Long, 25, and Frew, 24, bailed on the New Zealand summer to live in Morris from October to April, in hopes of taking their curling skills to the next level. They’ve been working with coach Lorne Hamblin and his wife Chris at the Cargill Curling Training Centre. Hamblin, who hails from Morris, is playing lead for the team in this week’s bonspiel. To go along with their training, the New Zealanders have signed up for three weekly curling leagues.

“Mom wasn’t particularly happy,” said Frew, the team’s second, with a laugh, when asked what people thought of them making the move to a small Canadian town.

“But I think everyone realizes what an amazing opportunity it is for us. It’s not something that New Zealand curling does that often. One of New Zealand’s best curlers, Sean Becker, did some years overseas and it really helped him. He ended up representing New Zealand in the Olympics (2006) in curling. Everyone back home realizes what a great opportunity this is for us, but they do keep sending me pictures of sunny days and the beach. Things we don’t really have over here.”

Sargon has a soccer background, while Long and Frew played the sport the country is most well-known for — rugby. All three were introduced to curling in high school, where they played on a hockey rink, and they’ve been playing ever since.

But if the group from Auckland wants to reach similar heights to Becker, they knew they’d have to make a major lifestyle change. One that likely meant trading in their flip-flops for winter boots.

“We came over to take advantage of the great resources and facilities here. We don’t have many facilities back home,” said Sargon, the skip. “There’s one curling rink in the Southern Hemisphere and it’s right at the bottom of New Zealand (in Naseby). For us, it’s a two-hour flight and a two-hour drive just to get there.”

The arrangement to come to Morris came about between Peter de Boer, New Zealand’s national team coach, and Hamblin. The two met at the Pacific-Asia Curling Championships a couple of years ago when Hamblin was coaching the Chinese national team. When de Boer told Hamblin about the three young curlers, they worked together to bring them to Morris.

“Their goal is to be Olympians,” said Hamblin, who also coached for Switzerland at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

“(They) come here and train with us for six months. We do on-ice, but we also have a big screen TV and we spend a lot of hours analyzing their deliveries. They’ve come a long way. They’ve improved dramatically. They still have lots to go, but they’re like sponges.”

They’ve clearly enjoyed seeing the progress in their games, but that doesn’t mean it’s been an easy transition. They’ve missed holidays with the family, but for Long, it’s been extra difficult as he had to leave his wife behind and will miss their one-year anniversary next month.

“It’s been really hard,” admitted Long, who throws third rocks for the team.

“There have been days, mainly when (our deliveries) were getting broken down and rebuilt and things weren’t going right and I couldn’t get my head around it, there was some real hard nights where I thought ‘What am I doing?’ But then, my wife back home is really supportive. She said you just got to trust the process and you’ll get there. Now, it’s all coming together, so there’s not as many of those days.”

Make the commitment even more impressive is their lack of funding. Despite the fact they’re all making a huge sacrifice to be here, Sargon, Long, and Frew aren’t getting paid. Sargon saved money, Frew has been working remotely and Long has picked up a part-time labour gig in Morris to help pay some bills.

“It’s been pretty much out of our own pocket. We’ll be getting a very small amount of funding from the World Curling Federation through New Zealand. So that’s great, but for the most part, we’ve been paying our own way,” said Sargon.

“It’s kind of a double-edged sword. You need to improve to a point where we can get sponsors and things like that and get a little bit of funding to help us join the tour. But you have to get to a certain level before you have access to those types of things.”

An impressive run in this week’s Manitoba Open, which features 224 teams in the full bonspiel which will be playing in 13 curling clubs around the city, might be a good start in helping the New Zealanders acquire some funding.

They started the event on the right foot as they took down Team Cayer 10-3 in their opening game on Thursday. However, they’re not making any bold predictions for the bonspiel.

“Play as well as we can and see where it takes us,” said Sargon.

“Obviously, it’s nice to win some games but we know there’s going to be a lot of good curlers. For me, I’m happy if we play well. That’s the main thing. We just want to see that continuous improvement from game to game.”

 

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31