New Zealand Curling

China beat NZ in the bronze medal match at the 2019 Pacific-Asia Championship. This year's event will be the last. Photo © WCF / Tom Rowland

15 Sep 2021 – "The biggest opportunity for New Zealand Men's and Women's national curling teams in years" is how Lorne DePape, one of two NZ representatives to the World Curling Federation, describes the introduction of the new Pan-Continental Curling Championship to the international calendar in the northern 2022-2023 season.

A minimum of five Men's and five Women's teams from this new event will qualify directly for their respective World Championships. It replaces the annual Pacific-Asia Championship that New Zealand currently plays in, and the annual Americas Challenge.

Anton Hood and Courtney Smith were one of twelve teams who lined up to qualify

2 Aug 2021 – The next step in the quest for New Zealand to send a Mixed Doubles curling team to the Beijing Winter Olympics took place at Naseby last weekend, with a qualifying tournament to find the four teams who will contest the NZ Championship. The national champions will have the chance to represent New Zealand in the last-chance Olympic qualifying event and at the 2022 World Championship.

The twelve teams contesting the Qualifier were split into two pools, and the two pool winners would be the first teams to qualify for September's NZ Championship.

Mhairi-Bronté Duncan and Brett Sargon became the first to reach that goal, winning their first four games to take an unassailable lead in their pool with a game to spare.

30 Jun 2021 – Last week saw the last match in the first section of the Bowlers League indoor crampit competition at MCI, along with the final round of the Contractors Cup Hack Indoor competition.

On the adjoining outdoor Maniototo Ice Rink the first round of the Hore Cup was held, followed on Sunday by the Brown Trophy – traditionally the first match of the season for the four Naseby clubs.

The Dowse Trophy knockout competition has been put back a week, and will now start on Thursday 8 July at 7.00 pm.

Poolburn and Lauder sides after the final

28 Jun 2021 – After a very full day's curling at Alexandra's IceInLine outdoor rink last week, Poolburn 1 just headed Lauder 1 to win the Idaburn Curling Council's Macrae Trophy for 2021.

Idaburn's clubs had played a round-robin over the previous few weeks, and on Finals day the top eight teams lined up early for the first knockout round on what was an enjoyable day with plenty of banter, refreshments and good ice.

14 Jun 2021 – Sean Becker skipped his team of Warren Dobson, Hamish Walker, Jayden Apuwai-Bishop and Rob McSkimming to the gold medal at the 2021 NZ Championships to win his 11th title.

However, he was pipped by his sister Bridget who led Natalie Thurlow, Holly Thompson, Jen Stewart and Ruby Kinney to a clean sweep of the Women's round robin as she recorded her 12th championship win.

With just three Women's teams entered, the sides played a double round-robin. Bridget Becker recorded a tight 7-6 extra-end win over Team Courtney Smith in their first meeting of the weekend, but had more comfortable margins in their remaining games to claim the gold with a clean sweep.

NZ Mixed Curling champions 2021

9 Jun 2021 – Garion Long, Zoe Harman, Brett Sargon and Rebecca Long are the NZ Mixed Curling champions for 2021 after the title was contested at Paradice Avondale over Queen’s Birthday Weekend.

They headed off Lorne DePape, Tess Farley, William Sheard and Ariel Weber 9-3 in the final on Monday evening.

Eight teams contested the event, starting in two pools of four. The two semi-finalists from Pool A, Team Long and Team Dean Fotti, were known after just two of the three rounds when they both won their opening games.

NZ v Finland. Photo © WCF / Céline Stucki

23 May 2021 – New Zealand curlers Courtney Smith and Anton Hood have fallen just short at the country's first attempt to qualify for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.

A last-stone loss in their pool game against the USA at the World Mixed Doubles Championship in Aberdeen, Scotland was the difference between fourth place in their pool (and with it a game for the seventh and final spot at Beijing), and their eventual placing of sixth in the pool and 12th overall in a field of 20.

Their participation at the Championship was only confirmed a few weeks before the Aberdeen event after the originally selected pair were unable to attend.