Day 3

We began our third and final day at the Ottawa Curling Club with some great insight into the career of two-time Brier champion and World champ Brett Gallant.

As Brett walked half of the group through his time as a junior curler in PEI before his move to men’s with Team Gushue, the other half of our camp was on the ice. Rachel, Emma, Joanne, Lisa and Earle were helping campers perfect their finesse game.

The on-ice session was designed to get curlers to think of angles, proper rock placement and get their draw weight down ahead of the Homan Shootout on Sunday afternoon.

As Brett finished walking our groups through what it was like to go from PEI to a World champ, we broke for another great lunch provided by the Ottawa Curling Club. Thanks to club manager Dalal and her team of her volunteers for serving up all of the meals and snack over the three days!

After lunch we gathered campers together for a presentation and work session on team dynamics. We discussed with our junior curlers how we all have different personalities and how we have leveraged those to become the world #1 ranked team. Campers were given a chance to think about their own personality and their strengths and weaknesses and what they could bring to a team.

RELATED: Read about Day 1 of the ThinkBeef.ca Team Homan Junior Curling Camp & Read about Day 2

We closed out the 2019 ThinkBeef.ca Team Homan Junior Curling Camp with the Homan Shootout. It was the perfect crescendo to so much of the learning from the past three days and… a lot of fun! Lisa entered the shootout as the captain of the previous two colour groups to win the shootouts in 2017 and 2018.

“Not this year!” was the friendly vow from our special guest instructor Brett.

The shootout started with a blazing start from Joanne and her team. Emma’s squad was close on their heels. As the rounds progressed it was Rachel’s Grey team that started to mount a major comeback while Lisa and Brett’s team took over the top spot. In the end, it was Brett’s Gold team that captured this year’s Team Homan Shootout title! The prize was bragging rights for the 16 curlers … and Brett.

Over 40 raffle prizes were drawn to close out camp, including jerseys and jackets from our closets as well as from Brett, Kevin Koe, John Epping and Alison Kreviazuk. A special thanks to Goldline Curling Supplies for providing several prizes and for partnering with us again this year at camp.

The ThinkBeef.ca Team Homan Junior Curling Camp closed out with a special award we began last year. Connor Ramsay was a camper at our 2017 camp and made a lasting impression on all of us. Connor passed away in the spring of 2018 and last year we honoured him with the Connor Ramsay Memorial Sportsmanship Award. This year we presented the award to a camper who has attended our camp three times, including in 2017. Laura always has a smile on her face, asks thoughtful questions and is very coachable. She was front and centre during our Sunday presentation with her notepad and pen. On the ice she always tried to lift others up with her positive attitude. Connor’s former teammate and last year’s award recipient, Evan helped present the award to Laura.

We want to thank all of our campers, their parents, our corporate partners, including ThinkBeef and the Ottawa Curling Club. We can’t wait to see what our #HomanJrs get up to this season and throughout their young careers.