Edin’s new strategy paying off early in curling season
Practice? That’s what two-time world champion Niklas Edin is talking about when describing his new plan for the curling season.
Last year his team from Karlstad, Sweden, rented a place in Ottawa during the fall to avoid the constant transatlantic flights in-between Canadian tour stops and allow them to compete in more events.
Edin doesn’t have that luxury this time around and with a lighter schedule he’s preparing more for the major tournaments that are actually on the docket.
“We didn’t get as many events or as big a budget approved so we pretty much have to go back and forth now,” Edin said last month during the Stu Sells Oakville Tankard. “We’re playing a bit less and we’re going to focus harder on practising in-between the events now instead.
“I think we really have to do well in each and every event now. We can’t have a couple of hiccups, so to speak, so we really need to focus for each and every one of the events.”
So far the strategy appears to be paying off with Team Edin winning two tour titles — including the Stu Sells Oakville Tankard — and currently leading both the World Curling Tour’s year-to-date rankings (221.892 points) and money list ($42,024).
The 31-year-old Edin has skipped Team Sweden at the past two Winter Olympics capturing the bronze medal at the 2014 Sochi Games. After that team split following the end of the Olympic cycle, Edin joined up with third Oskar Eriksson, second Kristian Lindstroem and lead Christoffer Sundgren.
It looked like that foursome would be set for the 2018 PyeongChang Games in South Korea until Lindstroem’s lingering shoulder injury finally caught up to him big time and required surgery this past off-season. Curling teams don’t have disabled lists or injured reserves like other sports and with the Winter Olympics looming Edin was forced to make the difficult decision to drop Lindstroem from the roster and bring in Rasmus Wrana to play second.
“In curling it’s hard to just let a player rest and be away for a season and then the whole team will struggle. He tried to fight it out but when he had the surgery it turned out to be way worse than we all thought,” Edin said. “He needed six-to-eight months recovery. Then starting from scratch with training and stuff like that so realistically it would take over a year to come back to the same level again and then we’re almost at the Olympics so we couldn’t really make any other decision than to bring in another player.
“We had one good option and that was Rasmus and he said yes right away. A fortunate break that we could get this team together that quickly but for Kristian it sucks big time. Obviously it’s just a year-and-a-half away from the Olympics so we wish him all the best but this time it couldn’t really be any other way after that surgery.”
Wrana previously skipped his own squad and earned silver at the 2012 world junior championships. With Eriksson also a former skip, one may think it would be a case of “too many chefs in the kitchen,” however, Edin said Wrana has fit in with his new role.
“So far he’s been the best player on our team for the first two events here so he’s playing super well,” Edin said. “He’s really motivated and a strong sweeper so he’s a great addition to our team. I think if he keeps going like this and we can gain some more experience as a team it’s looking really promising.”
Team Edin is set to compete in the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling season opener next week at the 2016 WFG Masters in Okotoks, Alta.