With the new year came a fresh opportunity for the Marauders to showcase their curling prowess on home ice
To start the new year, the Marauders curling team hosted the first curling invitational of the year. The McMaster Invitational took place during the first weekend of January, bringing together fierce competition from multiple universities across Ontario.
The invitational competition served as an exciting opportunity for both the men’s and women’s curling teams to sharpen their skills and build momentum ahead of the Ontario University Athletics championships this year. “We had a great weekend going 4-1 with some pretty controlled wins.” said Ben Winchester, one of the co-presidents of McMaster’s curling team.
We had a great weekend going 4-1 with some pretty controlled wins.
Ben Winchester, Co-President
McMaster Curling Team
Over the two-day period for which the invitational took place, the men’s team faced the University of Toronto, Trent University and York University once each and Brock University twice. They ended the invitational with an admirable four wins and one loss, finishing third after a 5-1 win against Brock in the playoffs. The women’s team performed just as well, ending the invitational with four wins and one loss.
The team worked on many aspects of their game prior to the invitational on the weekend. Namely their pregame practices.
“Pregame practices are a major component of curling tournaments. They typically are not included in invitationals, however they were in the one over the weekend [McMaster Invitational]. They determine who has the last shot in the first dent which is a huge advantage. Also at the end of practice each team also throws a draw and the draw score is used for tie breaking purposes.” said Winchester.
Their pregame practices turned out to be effective as the Marauders ended up having hammer in three of their matches.
Looking forward, Winchester expressed that the men’s team is hoping to work on being a more offense-oriented team. This shift aims to capitalize on scoring opportunities and to put more pressure on their opponents.
“We’re a more conservative and defensive team. We don’t typically have a lot of rocks in play which results in our wins being narrow for the most part. We’ve recently focused on upping our offense to score some big ends and we saw some glimpses of that in the invitational. Hopefully this is something that we can keep building on.” said Winchester.
As one of the more tenured members on the team in his fourth year, Winchester naturally has taken up more of a leadership role.
“It’s a little bit of pressure, but I love it. The most important thing is probably holding each other accountable on the ice.” said Winchester.
Last year, the Marauders didn’t have the best performance at the OUA's, having placed 12th.
“We weren’t expecting to do that well last year, however the 12th place finish was still a disappointment,” said Winchester.
Although the curling team has stayed the exact same, the men’s have been performing a lot better than they were during this time last year. This year they have a win percentage of 66.7 per cent compared to last year's of 23.3 per cent. “We’re playing a lot better this year and that's probably down to this group having more time to mesh together and understand each other,” said Winchester
We’re playing a lot better this year, and that's probably down to this group having more time to mesh together and understand each other.
Ben Winchester, Co-President
McMaster Curling Team
Winchester is eyeing playoff success with the men’s team during his last year of his undergraduate career. However the Marauders will face a tough game against Laurier, who have won the OUA championship seven times in the last decade. “I’d really like to make the playoffs. And once you’re in, it's kind of just taking it game by game from there.” said Winchester.
After a successful invitational at home, the Marauders men's and women's curling teams will take on the Brock Invitational on Jan. 18 and 19 ahead of this year's OUA championships on the weekend of Feb 6, 2025.
McMaster men's curling kicked off their season this past November with many invitationals ahead as they look to win big
The McMaster University men's curling season officially started in Guelph on Nov. 11. The Marauders faced three teams in the University of Guelph invitational in their first competition of the season. In their first game they faced off against Wilfrid Laurier University, the 2022-2023 Ontario University Athletics champions.
This challenge at the start of the season was not the only hardship this team has had to endure so far, with many key players leaving the team in their last offseason.
The team's only two returning players this year are Scott McLellan and Daniel Van Veghel. The graduation of Troy Stoner and Thomas Szasz would leave major gaps in the team that the current roster would have to fill.
It's mostly a new team [this year]. A lot of turnover especially in the back end, so you got to just kind of rebuild the entire team. We had a lot of new players.
Benjamin Winchester, second-year player, Marauders men's curling team
With these changes in roster, the team was left to rebuild mostly from scratch, leading to many of the current challenges they're facing this year.
“We didn’t have the greatest start, score wise, but it's been a steady improvement,” said Winchester.
Coming into this season, the team also welcomed in a new head coach. The team's previous head coach was Lori Eddey, an experienced curler who spent time at the national level as a player.
Eddey was replaced this season by Byron Scott, who spent the last seven years coaching at the University of Guelph before leaving to coach the current McMaster team.
Thus far, Scott has proven to be a great fit for the current Marauders' curling team. He consistently emphasizes mindful habits for the current players, who seem to resonate with them quite well.
“[Scott] is big into sports psychology, so he’ll mention a lot of the time pre-game what to be thinking and he’s tried to instill good habits in us. Instead of getting down if we miss a shot, [Scott says to] think "clean slate and just stay steady,"” said Winchester.
Despite some changes to the team dynamic this season, the Marauders have been able to learn and adapt to both each other and their new head coach. They've learned to play off of one another and have been able to see better results.
“We’ve gotten our communication down now. That was one of the big things with a new team; you don’t know how everyone communicates, with hand signals or other little things," said Winchester.
We’ve gotten our communication down now. That was one of the big things with a new team, you don’t know how everyone communicates, with hand signals or other little things.
Benjamin Winchester, second-year player, Marauders men's curling team
This season, the Marauders will hope to capture an OUA title after just falling short of the finals last year. Their loss to Queen's University ended in a 9-2 score.
“Personally, I’d like us to win [an OUA] quarterfinal game. That’s always been the goal... Always a bit more than that, but a quarterfinal game win would be nice,” said Winchester.
Scott and the team's newcomers will hope to make a big name for themselves as the season comes its peak.
C/O Caitgreer, Pixabay
Find McMaster’s curling team sweeping their way through the OUA
McMaster’s varsity curling team has an impressive history. The curling team has not only been part of Marauder Sports for more than 25 years, but the women’s team brought home the OUA championship in the 2019-20 season.
The curling teams are among McMaster’s smallest varsity teams, with the women’s roster made up of five athletes and the men’s team made up of four. The smaller sizes help foster team spirit as all the members can mesh and work well together, both on and off the ice. Additionally, having fewer players gives each member more opportunity to receive coaching and individual attention to develop their skills.
Conversely, having so few members can create a couple of issues. Everything from administration to practice times is managed by the curling team presidents and skips, Madelyn Warriner and Daniel Van Veghel. As such, the curling team’s social media is limited to a Facebook page due to a lack manpower dedicated to overseeing it. The sport of curling itself doesn’t garner much attention, but over the past couple of years, McMaster’s athletics and recreation department has aided in increasing their media exposure by conducting interviews and writing articles.
“Compared to other sports the numbers are still small, yes, [but] we can really see a growth which is exciting for us as a program,” said Van Veghel.
The women’s curling Ontario University Athletics season occurred on the weekend of Feb. 26 and the men’s OUAs occurred nearly a month later, on the weekend of March 19. While neither team brought home the championship, both are proud of the work they put in and how they played.
“We were probably one of the first sports, at least on the women's side, to have our OUAs following the return to competition. Normally we'd be ramping up our training right before, but we didn't really have that opportunity this year. But given that I'm still very proud of how we did. I think we really left it all out there,” said Warriner.
“We were probably one of the first sports, at least on the women's side, to have our OUAs following the return to competition. Normally we'd be ramping up our training right before, but we didn't really have that opportunity this year. But given that I'm still very proud of how we did. I think we really left it all out there."
Madelyn Warriner, Curling Team President
Curling is a unique sport in that it prioritizes precision and accuracy over power. It requires players to plan their plays many moves in advance and adapt not only to their opponents’ moves, but also their own.
“You’re playing against yourself. You're making your own shots. You're focusing on what you can control rather than what the other team is doing . . . You have no direct effect on how the other team performed, which is very unique to curling,” explained Warriner.
“You’re playing against yourself. You're making your own shots. You're focusing on what you can control rather than what the other team is doing . . . You have no direct effect on how the other team performed, which is very unique to curling."
Madelyn Warriner, Curling Team President
Focusing on one’s own moves is a common sentiment in curling but keeping spirits high helps as well.
“Sometimes the other team just plays better and there's lots of times at the end of it you go, ‘Wow, we were awesome. The score doesn't show it, but we played very well,’” said Van Veghel.
The 2021-2022 curling season may be over, but this team is excitedly looking toward the next and is ready to repeat the previous season’s win.
