Olympic curling roller coaster ends in Karuizawa

#Nagano25Years — Chapter 15, Feb. 15 1998

The big day had arrived, and while it lacked some of the tiebreaker and women’s semifinal drama from the previous day (available at The Curling Guy Facebook page) it would be monumental for the sport of curling.

Bronze was won by Sweden’s Elisabet Gustafson, who defeated Great Britain’s Kristy Hay 10-6, and by Norway’s Eigil Ramsfjell, a 9-4 winner over Tim Somerville’s USA. Their last two games marked a tough way for Team USA’s tournament to end, particularly after the joy from that incredible shot to win the second tiebreaker over Japan.

The women’s final at 1:00 p.m. saw Sandra Schmirler’s Regina team take on Denmark’s Helena Blach-Lavrsen. 

The gals started big by scoring three and while Denmark quickly responded with a deuce, Canada led all the way and created a cushion with back-to-back steals in ends five and six.

Joan McCusker made a heck of a triple-peel late in the game, and it’s great to see and hear her skip’s excitement as everything goes away. That should really be online somewhere.

The final score was Canada 7, Denmark 5.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixkmcKOttXE[/embed]

The girls had done it, and while we couldn’t watch many of their games due to our own schedule, we were immensely proud. 

As they celebrated, I remembered we had played each other in a fun battle of the sexes match at the local curling club when we first arrived; they won, although it was just a two or three end thing. It seemed like so long ago, just as it seemed to be the perfect way to kick off a remarkable curling adventure.

Denmark’s silver was tremendous for that nation. Danish royalty—Princess Benedikte—had literally flown to Japan to watch the final. In a few short years, Denmark’s curling facilities had grown zero to three.

This video shows Danish curlers watching the final as it unfolded at home, followed by quick interviews with Helena’s team at a reception after the game.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnUXPfUFAl8[/embed]

The men’s final kicked off at 5:00 p.m. I wish it hadn’t.

What a crappy birthday present.

We were crushed by Patrick Hürlimann’s Swiss team. After an opening blank, they stole two. After we took one, they scored seven straight points, five of them on steals.

Mike had been getting sick over the previous couple of days, and although the flu bug was knocking athletes out across all sports—including Jan Betker at the end of the round robin—we actually weren’t worried.

One of our team jokes for many years was that skipper played great when he was feeling terrible, i.e. with a cold or flu. He’d felt quite lousy the previous day but shot about 90 percent as we dismantled the Americans in the semifinal. We figured today would be just like yesterday.

How wrong we were. Illness had wrecked Mike’s curling mechanics, and nothing was working.

To dominate all week and get crushed like that in the final was a shocker. All these years later and it still hurts a bit. The table was set for what should have been at the very least a great shootout between two great teams. 

There was a pile of extra media in the arena. The Games mascots, those impossibly cute Snowlets, had shown up, as had some of our family’s hotel staff, led by Watanabe-san. There were athletes from other sports and Canadian mission staff there as well.

Worst of all, untold millions of potential curling fans were watching from around the world. 

All we’d wanted from the beginning was to play well, regardless of the results. Up to that moment, we had done just that.

The official Olympic summary video is quite frankly pathetic. It makes our sport look ridiculous, although much of that is down to whomever chose the shots to spotlight. Someone at the IOC should really do better.

That’s genuine happiness Mike was showing for Patrick, by the way. Good friends all the way. If we couldn’t win ourselves, we both wanted the other team to win.

Let it be said here and now that we might have lost that game anyway. The Swiss decided to come after us right from the beginning, and were extremely aggressive from their opening stone. They’d obviously decided to attack us as we’d attacked them, and every other team, early in all our other games. Shock and awe, perhaps.

I vaguely remember thinking, “Okay, here we go then” before we realized Mike was in trouble. 

Man, what a game that could have been. Should have been.

Bravo to Patrick, Patrik, Daniel, Diego and Domenic—and Stephan, too. The guys received gifts of free-lease automobiles when they got home. Nice cars. From Lexus, in fact. I hear they’re reuniting for dinner in Bern tonight; enjoy, fellas.

I guess I was smiling during the medal presentation, from the opening march onward, but it was different when they played the Swiss anthem. I was suddenly transported back to the game and just how badly we got killed, and that feeling of wanting to crawl into a hole and die had returned.

Then the anthem ended, and I was happy again. So weird.

Silver medallists in team sports get screwed. Think about it. The gold medallists are obviously on cloud nine, and the bronze medallists won their game hours earlier and might be (should be) half in the celebratory bag.

The silver winners, however, are the only ones who lose their final game. That’s painful.

I have no complaints though. I competed at the Olympic Winter Games for my country, and won a medal. That will remain very, very cool for another 25 years.

After the game we were told we couldn’t go back to the village through the main entrance. Apparently the American men’s team was upset that we’d been walloped after we had trounced them in the semi. Apparently, they wanted to beat us up. Apparently, alcohol was involved.

There were delays, and a bunch of radio calls between our driver and other Japanese organizers, before we were taken to a different village entrance. I don’t know how much of this was true, nor who was involved, but there’s at least one member of that team who would never engage in anything like that. You know who you are, and I appreciate you.

I got back to my room and resisted the urge to mope around alone. I picked myself up and went to a lounge, and found a bunch of curlers there. I was the only Canadian, and I stayed for a while.

Once back in the room, I started going through some of the items organizers had been in my room virtually every day of the Games. It was amazing; each day I’d return and there’d be stuff displayed on the bed—trinkets, artworks, merchandise, paper cuttings, letters from school children both in Japan and from around the world.

That’s when it all hit me, and I started crying. I let it all out … the pain of losing, the joy of winning, and the end of an incredible journey.

Eight weeks had passed since we won the Canadian Olympic Trials, the event where we were expected to finish ninth or 10th out of 10 teams. A year earlier, we’d won our spot in those trials. About seven months before that, I’d received a phone call telling me our team had reunited after a two-year split, in order to make a run at the Olympics.

(That’s an odd and true factoid. I wasn’t so much asked to rejoin the team, I was simply informed of what had been decided. And that was that!)

We departed Karuizawa the next day for the main athlete village in Nagano. We were split up, and I roomed with some figure skaters, including Elvis Stojko.

Our medal reception was held at Canada House. Elvis was cutting a celebration cake when Atina Ford jumped in to help. Quite the veteran move from such a youngster.

Elvis had been quietly nursing an injury in the weeks leading up to Nagano, and he still managed to win a silver medal. Pure blood and guts, inspiring stuff.

There was champagne, of course.

Both teams spent a day doing media and watching other sport competitions. If you’re lucky enough to win a medal, your Olympic committee trots you out to other venues to “be seen” … at least that’s what happened to us.

There were hangouts with other athletes.

We watched Gretzky and the Canadian men’s hockey team thrash the USA 4-1, and we sat with our Swiss curling pals for the Canada-USA women’s hockey gold medal game.

It wasn’t long before the Schmirlers took off for home; they had to defend their title as Team Canada at the Scott Tournament of Hearts. It was being hosted in their hometown of Regina, which was going to basically explode as soon as they landed. I can’t even imagine the chaos.

My teammates started departing soon after. Mike was still sick and getting worse; he eventually went to a Toronto hospital and discovered he had pneumonia.

We shouldn’t have been so cavalier about his health through the playoffs—I’m sorry, skipper.

Rich’s wife was sick, and he and Collin wanted to get back to their homes and jobs. Anything to try and forget how Karuizawa ended, I’m sure.

Mike told the press he’d feel better about his silver medal as time passed, and as Nagano became more distant. I’m hoping he, Rich, Collin and Coach Paul feel good about it all, 25 years later.

I thought about leaving too, but didn’t. Soon I was the only curler left in Japan, including staff, and I charged myself with the responsibility of cheering for Team Canada and partying on behalf of our entire contingent. Okay.

The final chapter, No. 16, will be posted tomorrow at The Curling Guy Facebook page. It may or may not reference a supermodel in Tokyo.

It’s been fun tracking memories from curling’s Olympic debut in the modern era. The memories are still fresh.