A curler had a golden experience thanks to the fact she happens to live in Okotoks.
Deb Miller won the gold medal with the Zone 2 55-plus mixed curling team at the Alberta 55-plus Winter Games Feb. 24-27 in St. Albert.
One of the reasons she was invited to join the winning rink was because she didn’t live in the big city.
“I didn’t know our skip from Adam,” Miller said. “He (Doug Miller) called me in December because their third was from the city and they weren’t allowed to have a curler from the city… I had no plans at the time to curl in the Senior Games.”
The Zone 2 team curled once before the Games, making a quick exit at a mixed bonspiel in Cochrane the week before heading to St. Albert.
They also got off to a bit of a slow start in St. Albert losing to the big city – Calgary.
“That was the only game we lost and then we were able to beat them in the final,” Miller said.
In the final, the match sounded like a rock concert from the 1980s featuring Crowded House.
Each team had ends in which they scored five.
“In the final end, we were up two with the hammer,” Miller said. “On their final rock, they had three rocks in the house and he ended up hitting two out.”
Miller is the two-time defending Foothills Ladies Triple Crown champion and she wouldn’t mind putting her ladies rink into the 55-plus Games in the future.
“It was absolutely fabulous — it was just awesome,” she said. “We still have to wait a few years to go before all the ladies on our team are old enough to go (to the Games).”
Turning through the gates
Technology and a youthful spirit led a Millarville skier to a pair of bronze medals at the 55-plus Games.
Jack Whitlie, 73, took third in the 70-plus slalom and dual slalom in St. Albert.
“It was a pretty short course,” Whitlie said. “There were 14 gates and I was able get down in about 23 seconds.”
Whitlie’s total time for the two trips down the course was 46.61 seconds.
In the dual slalom Whitlie skiing head to head against another skier down a slalom course. Two runs are taken and the total times are totaled to determine the standings. Whitlie’s time of 51.70 seconds was less than three-tenths of a second from winning the gold.
Whitlie grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland, not exactly a hotbed of skiing. He started skiing about 40 years ago in Grande Prairie and tried his luck at turning skis competitively during his first 55-plus Winter Games eight years ago.
While he’s aged, technology has made it a lot easier to turn since taking the sport up four decades ago.
“The parabolic skis makes turning so much easier, which is a good thing when you get older,” Whitlie said.
He’s not about to slow down as his age approaches three-quarters of a century.
“I enjoy the thrill of the speed and the challenge,” Whitlie said. “I ski with three other guys who are my age – two 73 years old and a 75 year old — and we are skiing every weekend.
“We ski the black diamond runs, the moguls, in the trees — we like to challenge the hill,” Whitlie said.
He plans to compete at the next Alberta 55-plus Games, when Whitlie will be the new kid on the block. Whitlie will be one of the young guys in the 75-and-over division in 2013. As he prepares for the 2013 Games he won’t let a fall get him down.
“I’m nursing a broken finger that happened earlier this year and my buddy broke his collarbone, but we don’t let these things hold us back,” Whitlie said.
