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World Curling Media

20 October 2023

Climbing the rankings: Guyana men and Mexico women debut in Pan Continental A-Division

The creation of the Pan Continental Curling Championships has led to more nations competing on the international circuit – with some recording historical firsts.

Guyana’s men’s team and Mexico’s women’s team will play in the A-Division after successful campaigns at the inaugural championships last year.

Guyana claimed the men’s B-Division title against the odds, finishing fourth in the round robin before upsetting top seeds Hong Kong and India on their way to promotion.

The Guyanese rink was held together with tape – a late withdrawal from one of its players left skip Ray Husain rummaging through Instagram followers to find a suitable fourth man. His name was Khemraj Goberdhan, a fan who had never curled before.

“I saw a guy that always comments on some of our posts,” said the Guyanese skip.

“I realised that he lived around the area and asked if he curls because he seemed to have curling knowledge. He said he’s always been a fan of the game.

“I was like, well, we kind of need a fourth player, would you be interested?”

New team line-up

Goberdhan was given a few weeks of coaching and thrown in at the deep end, helping Guyana to some important wins before missing the latter stages of the competition due to a fall on the ice.

They return this year without vice-skip Jason Perreira who retired, but Baul Persaud and Goberdhan are back along with newcomer Darryl Narain; with the team training together in Toronto.

Improved fitness and better preparation will be a positive step forward for a nation battling the odds while most of its population are more interested in cricket and football.

“Our whole thing last year was just to enter for the sake of entering,” added Husain.

“By the time we finished against India, we were relieved to get through nine games.

“Then when we won, we thought, we better take this seriously for next year.

“So, the whole thing that we just basically improved on was actually setting a schedule and plan to prepare. We never did that before.

“We just had a mindset shift and are taking the extra steps so that we’re prepared to play harder competition.”

Husain, who is also General Secretary of the Guyana Curling Federation, admits that player retention and development in the country has been a difficult challenge, but it has made every moment in the sport matter more.

“I tell my team, we’re always one player away from the programme collapsing because we’re only four [players] again,” he added.

“So, we just enjoy it and play it as if we won’t have this opportunity again.”

Mexican women join A-Division field

Mexico missed promotion to the women’s A-Division last year, losing by a steal in an extra end to Chinese Taipei, yet were moved up a few weeks ago due to Kazakhstan withdrawing from the competition.

“I was in a doctor’s appointment at the moment and I couldn’t get on the call,” said skip Adriana Camarena.

“There were a million WhatsApp messages in a minute.”

Building from the loss

Elation has somewhat quashed the agony of that extra-end defeat, but Camarena admits it was difficult to get over.

“It was a tough one to lose,” said the veteran who has been pivotal to the national set-up since Mexico debuted on the international curling stage in 2019.

“As a team we have reflected that it was a miss on a team communication mistake. Everyone has thoroughly processed that moment and it helped us understand the importance of building those skills and understanding our roles on the team.”

The same line-up of Camarena, Estefana Quintero, Veronica Huerta and Karla Martinez returns this year, consolidated by Canadian coach Doug Dalziel who has ramped up on technical coaching.

“A lot of our work is done by Zoom call,” said Dalziel, who Camarena calls the team’s “secret weapon”.

“We talk once or twice a week in the busiest part of the year and even the off-season at least once a week. We also worked with a sports psychologist this year for the first time so that was something new for them,” Dalziel explains.

“We’re just trying to get up to speed with what the top teams are doing and trying to increase our technical and overall knowledge of the game.”

Making it work

All four players were born in Mexico, before moving to four different cities across the west coast of the United States and Canada. Quintero works as an interior designer in Vancouver; Huerta is an infection control specialist at a hospital in Los Angeles, Martinez is a physical education teacher in San Diego and Camarena is a community organiser and consultant in law and international development, based in San Francisco.

Aside from the challenges of being a team that trains remotely, the lack of dedicated curling ice means only Quintero and Camarena are regularly practising on ideal surfaces.

Camarena’s experience outweighs that of her teammates who have eight years combined under their belt; and the standard of the A-Division does not seem to faze her.

“We’re very committed to do our best regardless of the division we play in,” she adds.

Paying out of their own pocket, the team hopes to seize on the opportunity to interest more Mexican women to take up curling.

Both teams are aiming to keep their heads above water and avoid relegation, but the potential to inspire their compatriots to take to the ice in future may be more valuable than any result.

Written by: Michael Houston, Feature Writer

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