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.

After last year's curling invitational was cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions, McMaster took the opportunity to host the yearly event at Dundas and preformed phenomenally

Although curling is a sport that can mostly be played in the winter months, it’s back in full swing this January. Just last week, McMaster University hosted their first curling invitational in years after last year's event got cancelled due to COVID-19 restrictions.  

This year, both the men’s and women’s teams got to experience the type of competition they’d come against in the upcoming OUA’s, each playing five games against other universities.  

“Last year we were meant to play the invitational at Dundas in January, but it unfortunately got cancelled due to lockdowns at that time. This time, we hosted the event to multiple universities, with Mohawk included, and got a lot of playing time where we clashed against five teams,” said Ben Winchester, a second-year men’s curling player.  

Over the two-day period for which the invitational took place, the five games for the men’s team were against Western University, Trent University, York University, Ontario Tech University and University of Toronto. By the end of the weekend, only three games had been accounted for, with the team picking up a win, a draw and a loss.

However, the women’s team had a much more impressive performance, grabbing an impressive four wins and one draw from five games.  

“I would say that the way we played during the invitational provided a lot of competition to other universities that took part. It certainly was a good weekend for us, and it gave us confidence ahead of the Brock invitational that is happening in a few weeks,” said Winchester.  

Although it is his second year with the curling team, Winchester debuted for the OUA curling team this season. His performances from last season certainly proved to be worthy enough to take part in the highest calibre men’s squad for the upcoming games.   

“I am currently in my second year of studies at McMaster, and it’s my second year as a curling team member. However, last year I was a part of the JV squad whereas this year I got the opportunity to partake in the strongest OUA squad that we have,” said Winchester.  

As with almost every other athlete, progress is a very important thing to Winchester. The expectations and improvement for the second-year athlete are an important aspect in his varsity experience.  

“Personally, I expect myself to further improve this season. I think that it should be every athlete's goal to push themselves to the max and achieve the most that they possibly can. As for the rest of the team, I think that we have a lot of potential to do well this season, especially in the upcoming OUA championships,” said Winchester 

Although currently the curling season is at full swing, after the OUA championships the team is expected to go on their off season. Since curling requires very icy conditions in a rink, this is not widely offered during seasons other than winter.  

“During the off season, we tend to go our separate ways. Everyone goes home and tries to get as much practice as possible, although it can be hard. It can be hard to find a place to do curling during hotter seasons,” said Winchester.  

After a successful invitational at home, McMaster men's and women's team are looking to garner more experience at the Brock Invitational, which takes place on Jan 21. and Jan 22. This will be their final preparation before the main event at the OUA championships which are happening on the weekend of Feb 10.  

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