(Emily Gray is from PEI, and will be competing in the inaugural Winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria, January 13-22, 2012. This story is reprinted from the CCA website).
Since my last post, I have come home from the trip of a lifetime! My trip to Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii was absolutely amazing.
Emily and the Sydney Harbour Opera House and Bridge
(Photo courtesy of E. Gray)
I had the time of my life, and absolutely fell in love with Sydney and am even considering doing a semester or two of university in that fabulous city. That is, of course, if I can find a curling club somewhere over there!
My training is going great as well. I have just recently completed my six-week program, and am very excited to start my eight-week. I am going to try to take it easy at the Whitecap Curling Academy, but I’m ready to jump into some more intense pre-season training.
This is my third year in attendance at Whitecap, which is held at the Mayflower Curling Club in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I know from experience how exhausting it will be. And with Helen [Radford] pulling us out of sessions to work together as a team, I can tell I am going to be just as exhausted as I have been every other year. Thankfully, the four-hour car drive home after it is all done gives me a little bit of time to catch up on my sleep. I will be jumping right into my midget softball provincials as soon as I get home, so I will need the few extra hours of rest.
Training, even on holiday. (Photo courtesy of E. Gray)
Helen recently gave my teammates and me our fall schedules, and it looks as if we are going to be busy. Along with our own provincial teams’ schedules, we will be traveling to Vancouver, BC, in October, and competing in Ottawa, Ontario, and Brandon, Manitoba, in November. I am really excited to compete in Ottawa because not only is it our first time really competing as Team Canada, but some of my family from Belleville, Ontario, will be coming to watch me curl. My own family is going to drive to Ottawa from PEI to watch. It is going to be so exciting to curl in front of all of them, making them proud. Hopefully by then we will have some Team Canada clothing, so it will make my family that much more proud.
So the team is now together for a week at the Whitecap Curling Academy. Since this is my third year, not only do I know what to expect, but I also know a lot of the returning curlers. Being with the team again is going great! We spent a ‘chill’ day at the Halifax Waterfront the day before Whitecap. It was really nice to just hang out and do something with each other besides curling. I know I love curling, but sometimes it’s nice to just step back and relax with the team.
At Whitecap we will not only be competing as a team, but we will also be competing in other ways: our colour groups compete against each other in things like a cheer, banner making and the most famous Great Shootout. I have yet to tell the team exactly what the Great Shootout is, so I hope they can yell loud!