Josh Lussier of Esterhazy joined the up-and-coming generation of top curling talent at the 2024 Canadian Under-18 Curling Championship. The event was held in Ottawa from February 4th – 10th at the RA Centre and the Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club.
42 teams, 21 female and 21 male, hit the ice for the national championships which was won on the male side by Newfoundland & Labrador #1 (Perry) who defeated Saskatchewan #1 (Derksen) 5-4. Manitoba #1 (Hayward) defeated Quebec #1 (Fortin) 8-5 on the female side.
Team Saskatchewan #2 (Team Snow) included Skip Rogan Snow of Saskatoon, third Nathan Roy of Saskatoon, second Luke Olsen of Saskatoon, lead Josh Lussier of Esterhazy and coach Richard Roy.
Local athlete Josh Lussier joined Team Snow in August of 2023. Team Snow has previous experience at the national championship, competing in Timmins, Ontario in 2023.
From September to December the team played in 8 bonspiels on the CurlSask Junior Tour, competing in both U18 bonspiels and U20 bonspiels. The rink covered the province playing in Saskatoon, Regina, Prince Albert, Humboldt, Moose Jaw and Yorkton. They ended the season with three 1st place wins, three 2nd place wins, one 3rd place win and one 4th place win.
The fierce competition of the regular season prepared Team Snow for the provincial bonspiel held in Moose Jaw from December 27th – 31st; here, the top two teams would advance to represent Saskatchewan at the U18 National Championship in Ottawa.
Lussier mentioned it was a hard battle in Moose Jaw with a lot of great teams from around Saskatchewan competing for the top spots. In the end, Team Snow and Team Derksen were the top two teams (both teams also competed in the national championship last year to represent Saskatchewan). Josh is the only player from either team that had not attended the event and was also the youngest player (15 years old) to represent Saskatchewan.
Speaking about the road to Ottawa, Josh said, “It took a lot of time and training to get there with practising 5 days a week. Curling has really taught me that there is always going to be someone better than you out there. And you always have to remember that there is more to learn and new things to practice”.
The team flew to Ottawa on February 2nd to prepare, while the opening ceremonies were held on February 4th. Going early allowed the team time to settle into Ottawa and gain some additional ice time at the two venues where the competition was held. The RA Centre and the Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club venues hosted over 200 athletes and their coaches from across Canada.
Josh’s mother, Tammy MacDonald, supplied a summary of how the team performed.
“Team Snow, known as Saskatchewan Team #2 (black jackets) started off with their first game against Team Newfoundland (NL). This game was the highlight of all the games for Josh and Team Snow as Team NL only lost one game in the whole competition and went on to win the U18 National Championship title; but, the one game they lost was this game on day one to Team Snow. It was a great game that went into an extra end where Josh and the team pulled out the win.”
“In round-robin the team went 4-2 (the teams they played included NL, Manitoba, Ontario, Northwest Territories, Alberta and British Columbia). The team headed into the playoffs against Team Quebec. The playoff game was close as it went into an extra end, but this time Team Snow could not pull off the win resulting in being eliminated finishing 11th out of 21 teams.”
Josh mentioned that the highlight of the event for him, outside of curling, was seeing the sights and meeting new people from different provinces.
“Ottawa was a blast, there were lots of fun tours to do and lots of new people to meet. While we were in Ottawa we got to tour the Senate and House of Commons. I even got to see Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre debate during Question Period in the House of Commons while I was there.”
The Canadian U18 curling championships made its debut in 2017 in Moncton, N.B., and gives today’s top male and female players exposure to the national level of curling competition.