Who will represent team Canada at the Olympics?

The biggest event in curling has officially kicked off in Saskatchewan. This past weekend marked the beginning of the Tim Hortons Curling Trials in Saskatoon.

The Trials will determine who represents the men’s and women’s team at the 2022 Olympic games in Beijing.

Our very own Darren Dupont is in Saskatoon all week to cover the Trials and is starting to see the city come to life to watch some excellent curling.

“It’s a huge national event,” said Dupont. “The city is buzzing. Where you go, people are talking about it. They are flooding the SaskTel Centre for these games, which is awesome, and then downtown, across the weekend, it was really buzzing.”

The topic of getting fans in stands has been a topic of discussion across every major sport in the country as Canada navigates its way through the fourth wave of the pandemic.

CBC curling reporter Devin Heroux, said he is happy with the turnout the Trials have been getting, and expects fans to really start heading down to the stadium as the week progresses into the playoffs.

“Right now, they are averaging about 4000 fans per draw, and that’s pretty good for the opening weekend of an Olympic trials and I expect this to build,” said Heroux.

On the ice, there have been several huge surprises and upsets in the early draws. Most notably, the reigning Tim Hortons Brier champion in team Brendan Bottcher, and one of the biggest names in curling, team Rachel Homan, are both sitting at 0-2.

Both teams suffered losses to the lowest-ranked teams in the field.

“This beast that is the Canadian Olympic curling trials, can literally shake the most seasoned curler to its core and we are seeing that right now,” said Heroux.

Perhaps Canada’s greatest female skip, and Olympic gold medalist, Jennifer Jones currently sits atop the women’s draw.

“Jennifer Jones is leading the way and she has that look that she had in 2014 in the Sochi Olympics when she won gold,” said Heroux. “Jennifer Jones can win a game all by herself. I would not want to play her this week in Saskatoon.”

Both Team Gushue and Team Jacobs are 2-0 and are first in the Men’s standings. For Saskatchewan fans, the play of Team Dunstone through the last two Briers has been very promising, but have struggled thus far in Saskatoon.

The team was forced to replace their third Breaden Moskowy after he dropped out of the tournament for ‘personal reasons’, just 72 hours before the Trials began. So far, it seems the team has been shaken up by the sudden move.

Team Dunstone is currently 0-2, and things don’t get any easier when they take on Kevin Koe and his team Monday afternoon.

“Today is a must win against Koe,” said Heroux. “In the history of this tournament, if you lose your first two, no team has ever come all the way back to win the trials.”

And not to make things more difficult, but athletes will also need to figure out the ice quickly after changes to the rocks Sunday night.

“Late last night, they decided to paper the rocks, which is a very secret, technical thing the ice makers have mastered where they sandpaper the bottom of the granite, so it gets a little grittier and it grabs that pebble and gets that curl,” said Heroux.

“The teams that figure out the ice, and the newly papered rocks, are going to be the ones that come out on top today.”

Stay tuned to The Rod Pedersen Show, where we will have all your coverage of The Trials all week long.