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www.insideHALTON.com · OAKVILLE BEAVER Friday, February 22, 2013 · 26 Sports Oakville Beaver By Herb Garbutt OAKVILLEBEAVERSTAFF SPORTS EDITOR:JONKUIPERIJ Phone 905-632-0588 (ext. 294) email sports@oakvillebeaver.com A lord of the rings Oakville curler Erika Brown is seeking her third trip to Olympic Winter Games I t wouldn't be entirely accurate to say Erika Brown has been around curling her entire life. There was that week after Erika was born before Diana Brown took her eight-day old daughter to watch her father play in a bonspiel. Erika began to play the sport herself at such a young age that the rocks -- still too heavy for the seven-year-old to lift -- were substituted with Kleenex boxes and ashtrays that she slid across the ice under the watchful eye of her dad, Steve. Needless to say, the Oakville resident has spent countless hours over her forty years with the sounds of `Hurrrrry, hurrrrrry' echoing in her ears. It was all preparation for what she faced on Saturday. Looking down the ice at her opponent's rock 125 feet away, Brown needed to execute a takeout in order to win the national title, book a trip to the world championships next month and secure her team a coveted spot in the Olympic trials. "You try really hard to not let the thought of what's at stake creep in," Brown said. "You're trying to execute that shot. That game, I already had a couple of shots to put them away, so if I had any thought, it was just making that shot." In the previous end, Brown had a chance to tap up her own stone in the eight-foot to secure the victory. However, the raise came up a few inches short, giving her opponents a steal of one and tying the score 6-6 to force an extra end. Given another opportunity to clinch the title, the six-time national champion would not miss a second chance to add a seventh. And few were surprised to see her come through. "We knew if we gave her a shot, she was going to make it," opposing skip Courtney George said in a press release. "We just wanted to make the shot a little bit harder." "We were hoping it would come down to Erika making a shot to win," added Brown's teammate Jessica Schultz. The victory puts Brown, Schultz, Debbie McCormick and Ann Swisshelm one step closer to a goal set two years ago when they formed the rink. "Our ultimate goal is to get to Sochi (for the Olympics)," Brown said. "It's all part of the plan." Before you start swelling with national pride, be aware of one thing. Should Brown win the Olympic trials, she will not be wearing the maple leaf. But if ever there was a reason to get behind another country, the Madison, Wisconsin native is as good as any. Brown has already represented the United States at two Olympics, including curling's debut as a demonstration sport in Calgary, when she was just 15 years old. While those in curling circles know Brown and her background, not everyone is aware of her American heritage. "It does confuse some people," Brown said. "Someone will congratulate me on winning nationals, but then the Scotties (Canada's national championship) is going on and people wonder why you aren't involved." Brown has called Oakville home since 2004. She met Ian Tetley at an Ontario bonspiel and married the three-time world champion. The couple has two sons. It's not as if Brown needed any more curling genes in the family bloodlines. She grew in up what has been dubbed the First Family of Curling. Dad is a member of the USA Curling Hall of Fame. A three-time national men's champion and a two-time medalist at worlds, Steve Brown competed in the 1988 Olympic trials. As he tried to secure his own trip to the Olympics, 50 feet away his teenage daughter was trying to do the same thing. The elder Brown calls it "undoubtedly the most difficult two-and-a-half hours of my life for focus and concentration" in his United States Curling Association bio. He's currently in Russia coaching the American Paralympic curling team in the world championships. Mom and dad have won two national mixed championships together and younger brother Craig skipped two national championship rinks, has competed at worlds and won a bronze medal at the world juniors. The family business, Steve's Curling Supplies, is the largest supplier of equipment for the sport in the U.S. As extraordinary as the family's curling resumé may be, the rink Brown has assembled in the quest to get to Sochi is also impressive. TODD KOROL / REUTERS ROCK STAR: Oakville resident Erika Brown, pictured delivering a rock during the 2010 World Women's Curling Championships, made her Olympic curling debut when she was 15 years old. The team's third, McCormick, skipped the U.S. team at the Vancouver Olympics and its world championship-winning team in 2003. (And just to show free trade is working, McCormick was born in Saskatoon but now lives just outside Brown's hometown in Wisconsin.) She and Brown were teammates at the 1996 worlds in Hamilton when the U.S. reached the final before falling to Canada. Swisshelm, now at lead, has played with both -- with Brown at the 2010 worlds, and as a member of McCormick's world champion rink in 2003. Schultz was an alternate on the 2010 world team and was also on the American team at the 2006 Olympics. Brown said there was an adjustment period for everyone as they took on new roles. For her, it has been the strategic element of the game that has required her to adapt. "Playing with a younger rink before, you get used to making the decisions, `This is what we're doing,'" she said. "Now you have these people to lean on, with all this experience, but you still have to know when to take advice and when not to." Although the results didn't come in the team's first year, Brown says the rink "is just starting to play our best." She will be seeking her first world title after having reached the final in both 1996 and 1999. The team will get together in Minneapolis at the beginning of March to prepare for worlds, which will be held in Riga, Latvia March 16-24. Then in November, it will be the Olympic trials, where the team will square off against three other rinks for the right to represent the U.S. But just because the field will be smaller than it was at U.S. championships, Brown says it will be by no means easier. "I think it will be tougher than nationals," she said. "It will be a lot of games against the best teams. It's going to be much more intense." But if it all comes down to one shot, there are few people you would rather have with the rock in their hand than Brown.