Thiessen stepping back from curling

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This article was published 31/03/2016 (3720 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Two years ago rumours started to circulate that Nolan Thiessen and Carter Rycroft were going to leave the game of curling. Then they won the Brier, went to the world men’s championship and had a chance to be the first-ever Team Canada at the 2015 Brier.

Kevin Koe left Thiessen, Rycroft and Pat Simmons after the 2014 world championship and the trio picked up John Morris. The new team went on to win the Canadian men’s crown again and all four remained together for this season.

A Brier three-peat wasn’t in the cards as Canada went 6-5 and missed the playoffs, and now Thiessen, a former Brandonite, and Rycroft have decided to take at least a year off instead of playing for two more seasons and trying to reach the 2018 Olympics.

“It got to the point now where it’s hard to really put everything into it with my family and everything,” Thiessen said from his home in Spruce Grove, Alta. “With the set up of the way our team ran, it was to the point where crap or get off the pot. It’s that time.”

“I’ve done enough in the game where I don’t need the Olympics for validation of it,” he continued. “Of course, I would have loved to go to the Olympics, but the game doesn’t owe me nothing, that’s for sure.”

Meanwhile, Simmons is looking for a new team and Morris is focusing on his health. He recently had surgery on his hernia.

Being a competitive curler isn’t easy on family life and Thiessen felt it was time to spend more time at home. His wife, Christine Sinclair, runs a finance department for a national engineering company and the couple has three kids at home, who are 18, 12 and three years old. When Thiessen’s away curling, it puts a lot more stress on his wife to look after the kids.

The 35-year-old, who was born in Pilot Mound, wants to ease that stress and have an opportunity to spend time with his kids as they grow up, even if it means his youngest won’t have memories of his father’s accomplishments in curling.

“The only thing that probably sucks a little bit is my three-year-old probably won’t ever get to see me play at this level,” said Thiessen, who’s a three-time Brier champion, 2010 world men’s champ and won the 2003 World University Games title while representing Brandon University. “He won’t ever remember me as Dad the curler. I’m sure there will be enough people who will remind him so he’ll know.

“The family is pretty busy and he’s getting into things and I want to be around for that.”

Although he’s announced that he won’t be on the ice next season, Thiessen isn’t sure what the future will hold for him.

He has his certified professional accountant designation and a small practice, which he described as being too small to be a full-time job. He plans on searching for a new job soon, but what it will be is still up in the air.

“I’ll need a job in the near future so we’ll see what that entails,” said Thiessen, who played one year of college baseball at Vernon College in Texas. “I might try to stay in the game first and worry about accounting later. I have my accounting background behind me and know I can land back there if I need to but I’d like to stay in the sport somehow.”

He has enjoyed writing his curling blog — which is more about what is going on in the sport as opposed to critiquing teams and players — over the last few years but isn’t sure if it will continue.

Thiessen isn’t saying he’ll never return to the pebbled ice either. He’s considering playing club — his eldest is starting to take up the sport as well —and will wait to see how he feels after being away from curling for a year before making a final decision.

“Me and Carter made sure (the announcement) didn’t say retire in it,” Thiessen said. “I am only 35, so never say never and maybe one year away will be enough to get those juices flowing again or in a couple years maybe I can get it cranked up again for four more years and my family will be in a different position to do that.

“If this is the end, the game doesn’t owe me nothing. I’ve won three Briers and a world championship. I got to do a lot of cool things in this sport. I don’t have any regrets, that’s for sure.”

» cjaster@brandonsun.com

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