Beaverlodge product Geoff Walker (far right) and the rest of Team Gushue. Photo from the Team Gushue Facebook page.

By Curtis Galbraith

Curling

Beaverlodge curler headed to second Olympic Trials

Nov 20, 2021 | 7:00 AM

Beaverlodge’s Geoff Walker will be taking part in his second career Canadian Olympic Curling Trials starting Saturday in Saskatoon.

Walker is the lead on Brad Gushue’s team.

He says having been through it once is an important experience.

“You sort of know what to expect. It was my first trials (in 2017) even though we won a Brier and a World Championship before I had competed in my first trials. I was used to playing in those big competitions.”

“The trials is always a little bit of a different beast. It is the best event in curling and it’s every four years.”

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Walker says it may not be an advantage to have two Olympic gold medalists on his team (skip Brad Gushue and third Mark Nichols in 2006) as other rinks have Olympic experience too.

“(Brad) Jacobs, for example, won the 2013 trials and won Olympic gold in the 2014 Olympics. Kevin Koe was the last Olympic trials and then (there are) a couple of other players scattered on other lineups that have been to the Olympics as well.”

He adds it will be nice to go into trials coming off a win in their last event, the Grand Slam of Curling’s National.

“We’ve had a good fall. We haven’t played a whole lot. We’ve gotten a lot of practices in and trained hard as a team. (Of) the three events that we have played in, we’ve won two of them and made the semi in the other.”

“We’ve been playing very well and we’re happy with where our game’s at. It’s just a matter of putting it together again next week.”

Walker says it is also nice to have fans back in the stands.

“Fans in the buildings always makes for a better atmosphere. We’re a team, for sure, that likes to build off the fan energy. I’m not sure how many they’re expecting. It’s a big building, so depending on how many fans, it might be pretty spread out.”

Gushue plays Brendan Bottcher in the first draw Saturday evening at 6 p.m. Alberta time.

Koe, a former Grande Prairie resident, leads his team into its first game against Tanner Horgan in the same draw.

The first women’s draw is Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m. Alberta time. Grande Prairie’s Kristie Moore and Cary-Anne McTaggart and their teammates on Casey Scheidegger’s rink will play Laura Walker.