From Super-Fan to International Curling Consultant

Similar to my passion for dentistry, I have an enthusiastic passion for certain sports that I enjoy during my free time. But my experience with the sport of curling… is quite an extraordinary journey that has taken me from super-fan to international curling consultant for the Korean national and professional curling teams.

My First Slide onto the Ice

I had first tried the sport of curling at the St. Vital Curling Club in Winnipeg (home curling club of legendary curler Jennifer Jones) in 1998. Without any prior lessons or training, I stepped onto the curling ice in my blue jeans, a borrowed broom, and a slip-on slider wrapped around my left sneaker - and threw my first ever curling rock down the ice. And instantly I was hooked! This newfound sport of curling was unlike any of the other sports that I had tried out. The rock throwing, the sweeping, the strategizing, and most of all the yelling - curling seemed to be a custom-fit for me!

A Chance Encounter at the World Championships

Due to my rigorous academic schedule in dental school, I had to give up the curling league that I played in during my freshman year. But my allure for the sport remained. In April of 2003, Korea had qualified for its first ever World Mens Curling Championship in Winnipeg.

To support the Korean team, I had assembled a group of about 20 students from the University of Manitoba Korean Students Association for Korea’s first game of the tournament against Scotland. Our loud cheers and waving flags caught the eye of the Korean coach as she bounded up to our group in the stands - with much gratitude and multiple bows she said:

"Thank you so much for coming out to cheer for us! I didn’t know that Koreans lived here in Winnipeg!!! Would you please join me and the team members for dinner after the game?"

An Unexpected Request

Excited to meet the Korean Men’s Curling Team and the coaching staff, I agreed to dinner after the game (by the way, Korea narrowly lost to Scotland 7-8 in that game). During dinner, the Head Coach made an interesting request to me:

"We have been trying to find a Korean-Canadian like you to connect us with a recently built curling club here in Canada. Would you be able to help us find a Winnipeg-area curling club that has been built within the last 10 years? We would like to request the blueprints for that curling club so that we can build the first curling club in Korea for our high-performance athletes."

Over the next week, I invested a large amount of effort and time to find a curling club that matched the Korean coach’s criteria, and my persistence helped me to discover the Fort Garry Curling Club had been constructed in 1997.

Anticipation and... Silence

Excited and overjoyed to be helping out the Korean national curling program, I hastily set up a meeting with the management staff at the Fort Garry Curling Club and the Korean team coaches. Hoping to play a middle-man consulting role to help develop curling in Korea, I envisioned the collaborative projects and Canada-Korea partnership that I would be participating in. I knew that this curling club building project would be transformational for the sport of curling in Korea. And I was fully anticipating this invitation from the Korean curling coaches.

Instead… I received silence. After I had done all that work to find the curling, set up the meeting AND secure the precious curling club blueprints that they desperately desired - silence. No “Thank you.” No acts of gratitude. Not even a phone call… for 15 years. Until we met again face-to-face at the 2023 World Women’s Curling Championships

[TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 2!]