Fowler team on top of world, Westman

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/01/2016 (3745 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A few weeks ago, Lois Fowler was at the Keystone Centre to watch her grandson play a minor hockey game when she decided to step into the Brandon Curling Club.

She looked out on the ice and saw a sign declaring the club as the home of the 2015 world senior women’s curling champions with her at skip, Maureen Bonar at third, Cathy Gauthier at second and Allyson Stewart at lead hanging above one of the scoreboards. It brought back a flood of memories from their time in Sochi, Russia in April as they became the first Brandon-based team to win a World Curling Federation title at any level.

“That’s just awesome,” Fowler said. “When I saw the sign up there again ‘Home of the world senior women’s curling champions,’ it’s just a wonderful feeling and I’m so honoured to have had that opportunity to represent Brandon and Manitoba and Canada.”

The accolades keep rolling in for the Fowler foursome as they are the Brandon Sun’s Mike Jones Westman Team of the Year, winning the 42nd annual edition of the award.

Fowler’s squad earned the right to represent Canada on the world stage by winning the 2014 national senior women’s championship, which was the first Canadian title for Fowler and Bonar, who are both from Brandon, as well as Stonewall’s Stewart. Gauthier, who’s from Winnipeg, won three national Scotties titles during her women’s career.

They set ambitious goals for the 2015 season and hoped to get a chance to defend their Canadian crown. However, the team struggled at provincials, going 2-2 in its pool. The Fowler foursome wrapped up the event by playing five games in a 29-hour period — their final round-robin game, two tiebreakers, the 3-vs.-4 Page game, the semifinal and final — and had their run end with an 8-6 loss to Kim Link in the championship game.

Although they were disappointed at the time, all four players agree it was a good thing they didn’t win Manitoba.

“When we look back at that now, we think it was a blessing that we did lose that provincial final because it gave us more time to practise and work on some things,” Fowler said. “When we think if we had gone to Edmonton to play at nationals, that might have been too much and may have played us out.

“I think what we did last spring curling whenever we could wherever we could on weekends, it wasn’t a gruelling experience. When you go to nationals, it’s mentally and physically draining. We all said looking back on the big scheme of things that I think it was a blessing that we lost and it really made us focus on the worlds and to prepare for that.”

Having a year to prepare for an event like the worlds can make it grow in people’s minds, but it can also make it hard to believe that it’s actually happening. Both things happened to Fowler’s team.

It finally hit Bonar that she was going to the worlds in the airport as the team prepared to fly out to Sochi.

“We were sitting in the airport and we all put our hands down and took a picture of our hands with our rings on,” she said. “There were Scotties rings in there and that kind of thing and it was like ‘OK, here’s these four women sitting in an airport and we’re heading to Russia.’ It was at that point that it was like ‘This is really happening.’ It’s like the journey started there and this is it. There’s no waiting or turning back. We’re going forward from here”

Bonar had another revelation on the ice while playing Slovakia that they weren’t playing provincial teams anymore.

The Canadian crew, which was coached by Fowler’s husband Brian, got off to a strong start at the worlds, dominating Italy and New Zealand 11-1 before topping England 10-2. Fowler rolled an inch too far with her last rock against the United States to lose 6-5 before rebounding with a 12-3 victory over Slovakia to finish second in its pool.

They topped Switzerland’s Susan Limena 5-2 in the quarter-finals, Sweden’s Gunilla Arfwidsson Edlund 11-2 in the semifinals and Italy’s Fiona Grace Simpson 6-2 in the final.

Looking back on the event, Bonar admits that loss to the United States may have been the spark the team needed to achieve its goal.

“It was good because it made us fight back and be sharper and be poised and focused on what we needed to do,” she said. “I think it was a wakeup call at that point to say ‘Don’t take it for granted. We’ve been cruising along pretty easily for a while now but we still need to perform and focus on whoever we end up playing, and it ended up being Italy in the final, which was the first team we had in the competition.

“It was a game of inches against the U.S. We were angry that we lost, especially since we don’t like to lose and especially when you’re carrying each game. That set us up to be a little more sharp and focus on the goal at hand.”

All four women put in a lot of time and effort throughout their curling careers, sacrificing time with families and events like trick or treating with kids on Halloween or Thanksgiving dinners. No one member of the foursome had a world title to their name before this year and they all had the same drive to get there, which was part of what made them so close.

Bonar feels the title was a proper culmination of all of her sacrifices and will solidify the friendship between all four women forever.

“Even today we’ll email back and forth with each other and be like ‘I can’t believe what we experienced.’ It is so cool to have these lifelong friendships with these three other gals and our coach and people from Curling Canada. It’s so special,” Bonar said. “I don’t even know how to express it. It’s just this really, really special time in all our of lives and it’s like time stopped for us to compete and do that. Being a senior, you don’t really think that you have that opportunity and it was just phenomenal that way.”

The title also signalled the end of Fowler’s and Gauthier’s curling careers, as they chose to retire from the game as players on top of the world.

Fowler is proud of what she accomplished in 2015 and the only world title of her career, but she realized something else in her most recent trip to the Brandon Curling Club. After decades of playing the roaring game, she’s happy to be away from it and to travel to warmer climates during Manitoba’s winters.

“I walked into the curling rink because we were watching hockey down the hall and I said to Brian ‘I don’t miss it at all,’” Fowler said. “I don’t know why, I guess we’ve been in Arizona for six weeks and we’re going back again and we’re busy doing other things. I think in the back of my mind I just knew I was done and winning it all was just the perfect way to end my career and it just feels right.”

» cjaster@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @jasterch

TEAMS OF THE YEAR

2015 — Lois Fowler team, curling

2014 — Paige Lawrence & Rudi Swiegers, figure skating

2013 — Brandon University Bobcats, men’s volleyball

2012 — Neelin Spartans, girls volleyball

2011 — Brandon University Bobcats, men’s volleyball

2010 — Brandon Tri-Star Storm, women’s volleyball

2009 — Westman Wildcats, hockey

2008 — Crocus Plainsmen, girls basketball and volleyball

2007 — Brandon University Bobcats, men’s basketball, and Brandon Cloverleafs, baseball

2006 — Terry McNamee, curling

2005 — Crocus Plainsmen, hockey

2004 — Brandon AAA Midget Wheat Kings, hockey

2003 — Club West Rage, girls volleyball

2002 — Crocus Plainsmen, girls volleyball

2001 — Mike McEwen team, Linda Van Daele team, curling

2000 — Brandon University Bobcats, men’s basketball

1999 — Crocus Plainsmen, boys volleyball

1998 — Lois Fowler team, curling; Mike McEwen team, curling; Lisa Roy team, curling; Doug Armour team, curling; Rob Fowler team, curling

1997 — Neepawa Farmers, baseball

1996 — Brandon Wheat Kings, hockey, and Brandon University Bobcats, men’s basketball

1995 — Brandon Wheat Kings, hockey

1994 — Brandon Cloverleafs, baseball

1993 — Maureen Bonar team, curling

1992 — Boissevain Broncos, boys basketball

1991 — Maxine Heritage team, curling

1990 — Duane Edwards team, curling

1989 — Brandon University Bobcats, men’s basketball

1988 — Brandon University Bobcats, men’s basketball

1987 — Brandon University Bobcats, men’s basketball

1986 — Vincent Massey Vikings, girls basketball

1985 — Vincent Massey Vikings, girls basketball

1984 — Brandon University Bobcats, men’s basketball

1983 — Mabel Mitchell team, curling

1982 — Mel Logan team, curling

1981 — Cec Leach/Petey Two, retrieving

1980 — Brandon University Bobcats, men’s basketball

1979 — Brandon Wheat Kings, hockey

1978 — Riverside Canucks, baseball

1977 — Brandon Wheat Kings, hockey

1976 — Deloraine Royals, hockey

1975 — Vincent Massey Vikings, girls basketball

1974 — Don Barr team, curling