Airdrie’s Team Sluchinski claimed a provincial men’s curling title, securing a spot in the 2024 Montana’s Brier in Regina in March, where they’ll represent Alberta on one of curling’s biggest stages.
After defeating two-time world championship gold medalist Kevin Koe at the championship in Hinton last week, team skip and Airdrie curler Aaron Sluchinski will have an opportunity to compete against some of the best in the country at next month’s tournament.
“It felt great,” Sluchinski said after winning the provincial crown. “We watched [a lot] of those guys [we beat] when we were coming up and it feels good to be able to play on the same stage as them and make our way to a Brier.”
Curling Canada recently announced that Team Sluchinski will compete in pool B at the Brier, against Olympic gold-medalist Brad Gushue and four-time Brier winner Kevin Koe, who’s team got into the Brier as an Alberta wildcard.
At provincials, Sluchinski and teammates Jeremy Harty, Kerr Drummond, and Dylan Webster defeated Team Koe 6-3 in the final match to win provincial gold. When asked about the pool matchups they will have, Sluchinski said he wasn’t totally worried about having to go up against a couple curling greats like Gushue and Koe.
Sluchinski said they know they can beat Koe because they have already beat him twice this year. With Gushue, on the other hand, the two-time Olympian bested the Airdrie team in both their contests this year.
“We’re gonna have to be a little better,” said Sluchinski. “It's gonna be a totally different atmosphere at the Brier; so hopefully we can get our nerves settled early enough to be competitive out there.”
Sluchinski already has some Brier experience, although he admits it is fairly limited. A few years ago he was the fifth on a team skipped by Alberta’s Brendan Bottcher.
“I threw like four or eight rocks and I got into a few games when they were up a bunch of points,” explained Sluchinski, summing up the extent of his previous event experience. “But I've never earned my way to a Brier myself so I'm pretty excited.
“I have to go and steer the ship, it'll be completely different than just sitting in the background and collecting rock information,” he said.
Whatever team wins the Brier will automatically represent Canada at the World Championship. Koe and Gushue have won a combined nine times.
Preparation for the Brier, which begins March 1, has already started for Team Sluchinski.
“We're just gonna be practicing and making sure we're prepared,” said Sluchinski, who added that a major difference between the Brier and other curling tournaments–other than the media attention and prestige–is the curl of the ice.
“The Brier always has the most curl,” claimed Sluchinski. “The ice curls the most, more so than any competition typically. It might be a little bit of a learner curve, but other than that nothing else changes.”
Sluchinski stated that his team has to adapt quickly because they won’t be given a lot of time to practice on the Brier’s ice in Regina before pool play begins.
Team Sluchinski’s first game will be a rematch against Team Koe on March 1.
