An Okotoks curler’s return to the national stage took a circuitous route.
But with just enough draw weight Kyler Kleibrink is once again hitting the button at the Home Hardware Canadian Mixed Doubles Championships, March 18-25 at WinSport, alongside a new teammate in Saskatchewan’s Chaelynn Kitz.
“We were set to play in the 2020 Mixed Doubles Nationals and it got cancelled like two days before we were supposed to fly out there,” said Kleibrink. “We (partner Chantele Broderson) were kind of expecting this whole last year that Chantele and I would be in the 2021 nationals. So we were planning for that, training for that and we actually got picked up by Curling Canada’s next gen program as well.
“But they had to come up with some new criteria on the new nationals and they wanted to include top teams that didn’t get a chance to play this year.”
The inclusion of seven top elite teams along with 14 provincial/territory championship teams and 14 teams from the Canadian Mixed Doubles Rankings based on events from March 2019 to March 2020 left Kleibrink and Broderson on the outside of the picture.
Enter Kitz, from Saskatoon, who had an opening on her team with partner Brayden Stewart unable to compete due to his commitments as a teacher.
“We’ve basically just played together before on the mixed doubles national tour for the past few years – we were competitors and she saw this as a good way to team up,” Kleibrink said.
Team building amongst the fledging duo amid the pandemic restrictions is a mountain to climb.
Due to the stringent measures of the Calgary curling bubble, Kitz is not allowed to practise with Kleibrink until both of them are part of the bubble right before the competition following rigorous testing and quarantining.
“We’re doing some Zoom calls to talk about our tendencies and what we need to know, but for the most part we’re going to have to figure each other out,” Kleibrink said. “It will be a learning experience for sure and hopefully we can pick it up fairly fast.”
Fortunately, both curlers have experience at the competition.
Kleibrink posted a 4-3 record with Broderson at the 2019 event while Kitz, 24, has twice competed on the mixed doubles national stage highlighted by a quarterfinal appearance in 2018.
“It was definitely different, we had a crowd, we had really ‘curly’ championship ice,” Kleibrink reminisced about the 2019 event. “We were playing against really big names and it’s tough to not look at who you’re playing and think ‘how the heck are we going to beat these guys?’
“You kind of learn just not to think about who you’re playing and just throw your own rocks. We went 4-3 in that bonspiel and had some really tight games so if we can build on that then we can maybe make playoffs here.”
In the 2021 event, the 35-team field features a number of the heavy-hitters in the sport, from power couples like two-time champions Jocelyn Peterman and Brett Gallant to Jennifer Jones and Brent Laing.
Alberta has fared well in the competition of late with at least one Albertan on each of the past five championship teams from 2015-19.
Kitz and Kleibrink are in Pool C alongside 2018 national champions Laura Walker and Kirk Muyres, the highly-ranked Nancy Martin and Tyrel Griffith, back-to-back Scotties champion Briane Meilleur and teammate Mark Nichols, Selena Njegovan and Reid Carruthers, Lauren and Alex McFayden and B.C.’s Stephanie Jackson-Baier and Corey Chester.
“When I saw it I thought that is a very difficult pool, but you look across all the pools and they’re all quite difficult,” Kleibrink said. “Our pool, in particular, Laura Walker and Kirk Muyres are really good, past champions, Nancy Martin and Tyrel Griffith are ranked second in Canada, they’re really, really good.
“The elite teams they threw in there, they’re not ranked as high because they don’t play as much mixed doubles, but Reid Carruthers, Mark Nichols, Briane Meilleur, they’re just amazing players, they don’t play much mixed doubles, but we’ll see how that translates over from their four-person game.”
Those coming off competing in the Scotties Tournament of Hearts and Brier, both held at WinSport, should come in with an advantage knowing the ice, Kleibrink said.
Kitz is among those now familiar with the bubble, having played second on Sherry Anderson’s Team Saskatchewan rink at last month’s Scotties.
“We’ll just have to learn that much quicker if we want to have a chance against those guys that know it,” Kleibrink said. “And there’s a couple teams that didn’t have either partner in there so they’ll really have to play catch up.”
For more information on the event go to curling.ca/2021mixeddoubles
