The practice, preparation and travel is complete, and now it’s time to get down to business for Moose Jaw’s Marie Wright and Winnipeg’s Jamie Anseeuw at the inaugural World Wheelchair Curling Mixed Doubles Championship.
The duo spent time working on their game in Winnipeg in the lead-up to the tournament in Lohja, Finland and Wright told www.paralympic.ca that things have come together when it comes to the crucial process of learning each others’ game.
“With being able to practice together it has given us the opportunity to read each other’s rock and see how we throw each other’s rocks so that’s going to help,” Wright said. “Some of the European teams have been doing mixed doubles for a while over there so I think we’ll come up against some pretty good teams. We’ll have to play strong.”
Anseeuw added that the pressure of playing in a new event will be something different.
“This is the first mixed worlds, so there is no pecking order so it’s difficult to set expectations,” he said. “Yet on the other hand the whole country is waiting to see how we come out of it. There’s a bit of pressure there but I think it’s good pressure. We’re a solid team from a solid country. Marie and I expect good things.”
Wright and Anseeuw open the tournament as Team Canada at 4 a.m. Moose Jaw time on Saturday before facing Denmark at 11 a.m. Finland is GMT+3, meaning it sits nine hours ahead of local time.
They’re back on the ice at 4 a.m. Sunday against Slovakia in their lone game of the day.
Canada takes on the United States at 12:30 a.m. and Norway at 7:30 a.m. Monday before facing Turkey at 12:30 a.m. and Czechia at 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday.
Wright and Anseeuw wrap up their round robin at 12:30 a.m. Wednesday against Denmark.
The top three teams from each of the nine-team preliminary round draws advance to the playoffs, with Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Scotland, Switzerland, and Sweden playing in Group A.
For more information, including live scoring throughout the event, be sure to visit www.worldcurling.org/events/wwhmdcc2022.
