NZ Teams & Events News

Junior Women champions L-R: Grace Apuwai-Bishop (skip), Savannah Cumming, Temika Apuwai-Bishop, Lucy Neilson. Photo © Janyne Fletcher

22 Oct 2021 –Seven teams contested a tightly fought NZ Junior Championship over the last weekend of October at MCI Naseby. The opening game set the tone for the rest of the tournament when the eventual Men's winners stole an extra end win.

In the true Spirit of Curling, each team was made up of a range of ages and abilities with more experienced curlers spread out among the younger players.

This made for a great competition with some very close games that were down to the last stone. All competitors should feel proud of their efforts and skills demonstrated over the weekend.

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.

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.

Team New Zealand at the 2019 Pacific Asia Championship. Photo © WCF / Tom Rowland

To all Competitive Curlers

The NZCA Exec encourages athletes to self-nominate in order to be considered for selection for several International events through the 2021-2022 curling season.

The Coronavirus, quarantine requirements, and the vaccine rollout timetable are still generating some uncertainty around the coming international season. However, running this process now will enable us to move quickly when restrictions lift and allow for NZ representative teams to travel overseas more easily.

Click here to self-nominate. The deadline for self-nomination is Friday 23rd April.

Specifically, the teams to be selected for 2021-22 are:

Jess and Ben Smith. Photo © WGNZ / Iain McGregor

29 Nov 2020 – Maniototo siblings Jessica and Ben Smith earned the right to represent New Zealand at the 2021 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship when they won the three-team National Trial this weekend.

It has been a long wait for the pair. This is the third time they have won that right, but for personal reasons they did not go in 2019, and this year's World tournament was a casualty of the pandemic.

The 2020 cancellation increased the importance of the 2021 World Championship as an Olympic qualifier, triggering a one-off change from the NZ Curling Association. They introducing this National Trial rather than the automatic selection of the New Zealand Championship winners as the national team.

Click to watch a full replay of the final on Sky Sport Next's YouTube channel

20 Sep 2020 – A live-streamed thriller of a final capped off an outstanding 2020 NZ Mixed Doubles Championship.

With the scores tied in the final end and their opponents' shot rock on the button and well guarded, Bridget Becker managed to curl the last stone of the game around the guard, tap it back, and stay in the four foot ring to earn the gold medal match 9-8 for herself and brother Sean.

It was a see-saw affair that saw their opponents Mhairi-Bronte Duncan and Brett Sargon start strongly, scoring four in the opening end. The Becker siblings then scored in the next six ends to lead 8-4 before another four-point haul to Duncan and Sargon in the penultimate end levelled the scores.