Brandonite heading to the Brier with Nunavut rink

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This article was published 25/12/2022 (729 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The opportunity to compete at a major curling event is nothing new for Sheldon Wettig.

The 41-year-old teacher from Brandon was the skip for the Northwest Territories at the 2000 and 2001 Canadian Juniors and won a gold medal at the 2003 Winter Universiade as the second for Mike McEwen’s Brandon Bobcats squad.

While he went to the Tim Hortons Brier in 2020 as the alternate for Jake Higgs’ Nunavut rink, a purple heart was still missing from his curling resumé.

That all changed last week as Wettig was at third for the Higgs rink as they won the 2023 Nunavut men’s tankard in an 8-7 affair over Peter Mackey in Iqaluit.

As a result of the triumph, he will now be heading to the Brier in London, Ont., from March 3 to 12.

“It started to set in right away,” Wettig said. “This is something I’ve been trying to work towards for my entire curling career.

“There’s nothing bigger than the purple heart for a Canadian curler. To have that now as a member of a team and not as a tag-along member is pretty surreal.”

Wettig is eligible to represent Nunavut due to his birthright status. He was born in Iqaluit, which was then known as Frobisher Bay, N.W.T., but moved to Yellowknife when he was 11 months old.

His first appearance at the territorial playdowns was in 2019 as a member of Brady St. Louis’s rink. While they didn’t come away with the title, Higgs invited Wettig to be the fifth at the 2020 Brier in Kingston, Ont.

“Then when COVID happened, that pretty much put a halt to a lot of people’s curling plans and it made it hard to really travel anywhere,” Wettig said.

“When everything started to open back up, Jake asked if I wanted to come up and play third for him. It was an opportunity I couldn’t say no to.”

Last weekend’s playdowns marked the first time that the rink, which also features St. Louis at second, Terry Lichty at lead and Christian Smitheram at fifth, had played together in an event due to their work commitments.

Wettig geared up for the competition by playing two nights a week at the Brandon Curling Club — he skips a rink that plays on Mondays and is third for Shawn Taylor’s squad in the Westman Super League — in addition to throwing rocks as often as he can and serving as a coach for youth leagues at the club.

“We all come from a fairly competitive background so we’re fine when it comes to picking up on the ice and things like that, but the team aspect is something that takes a little more time,” Wettig said.

“It’s really those little intricacies that you are trying to figure out, such as learning how to read other’s deliveries, learning each other’s release tendencies and knowing how to judge the weights of the rock as early as possible so that Jake knows how to call the line.”

During the three-team double round-robin event, which also included a rink that was skipped by Peter Van Strein, the Higgs squad was able to capitalize on their draw weight to take early leads.

The tables turned in the final, however, as Mackey held a 5-1 advantage after five ends.

“During the break, we kind of sat back and took a moment to breathe and calm our nerves a little bit,” Wettig said. “We needed to stop putting so much pressure on ourselves and just play the game.

“With that said, the Mackey team played outstanding and Peter had immaculate draw weight in the final.”

After clawing their way back to tie things up at seven through nine ends, the Higgs rink had two rocks touching the top of the four-foot when Mackey went into the hack to throw his final stone in the tenth.

Mackey’s draw attempt ended up sliding a couple of inches too far and stopped at the back of the four-foot. A measurement followed and Higgs ended up stealing a point to come away with the 8-7 triumph and the territorial title.

“We were pretty sure that we had the point before the measurement, but when Peter’s rock hit the hog line, I was 100 per cent sure that he had made the shot,” Wettig said. “He threw it perfectly … but it just floated a little bit deep on him.”

Now that they know they’ll be heading to the Brier, the Higgs rink is planning to play in a couple of bonspiels in Ontario in the coming weeks.

Wettig won’t be able to attend those events due to his work commitments, but he is going to take to the ice as much as he can in Brandon before going to London.

The Brier experience won’t be as daunting for him this time around as he got to appear in five games with Nunavut in 2020.

“I think the mental aspect of the tournament was the biggest thing I had to adjust to in Kingston,” Wettig said. “I had played on arena ice before, so I knew that it was going to be faster than club ice, but I had never played in front of a crowd that big, had TSN cameras and photographers on the ice during a game, or had interview requests and people asking for autographs afterward.

“That’s something I don’t think you can truly prepare for until you experience it.”

— The Brandon Sun