Skip to content

Junior curler has experience of a lifetime

UNITY — Landon Solomko, age 13, who curls both in league at the Unity Curling Club and as a member of the Unity Composite High School junior team, won the opportunity to be a SaskEnergy Junior Star for the 2015 Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Moose

UNITY — Landon Solomko, age 13, who curls both in league at the Unity Curling Club and as a member of the Unity Composite High School junior team, won the opportunity to be a SaskEnergy Junior Star for the 2015 Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Moose Jaw Feb. 14 – 22.

After the surprise announcement was made in Moose Jaw in December, with lucky winners being selected out of the 95 applicants, those selected, including Landon, anxiously awaited the arrival of the Scotties event.

Landon was glad his dad chose to drive to Moose Jaw Feb. 13, after his playoff hockey game in Kindersley, in order to arrive in Moose Jaw before the big storm that was coming. “It wasn’t great between Kindersley and Rosetown but the weather improved pretty much to Chamberlain, and again from Tuxford to Moose Jaw it wasn’t great again. We arrived at 4 a.m. but we made it,” said Landon.

Landon attended several draws prior to his big event, soaking up the atmosphere at the national curling event. “It was fun to see all the fans that dress up and have different noisemakers and hear the different chants they do, kind of like a Rider game. Our seats were also near Randy Ferbey, Brent Laing and Mike McEwen which was kind of cool,” Landon explained.

For his Junior Star day, he met up with SaskEnergy representatives Shannon Doka and Shelley Meadows who briefed the “stars” on their activity that afternoon.

Landon explains, “We were all over the ‘backstage’ area of the arena to see all the places the volunteers work, where the curlers can work out and get ready for their games and stuff. We also got to be on the ice with our team while they were warming up and it is a really different view looking up, different from your seats looking down. We got tons of autographs and all of the teams were super nice to us.

“Then we were lined up to march in for that game’s opening ceremonies, which made me a little nervous but it was fun. When they marched us onto centre ice, our name was announced along with our team and I waved at the crowd. After this we watched some of the game right from behind the team benches and then we were taken on another tour of both the live broadcast in the TSN booth and the TSN mobile truck.”

Each day the official Canadian Curling Association paper, The Heart Chart, available at the venue, included team photos of the day previous Junior Stars.

Each of the 24 Junior Stars during the event received a limited edition SaskEnergy carryon bag full of goodies from both SaskEnergy and TSN, and an official team jacket. As well Team Newfoundland gave the Junior Stars goodies from their province. Landon in turn presented “swag bags” to his team, full of items exclusive to Unity or Saskatchewan, including Rider goods.

What was his favourite part? Landon replies, “It’s hard to pick one because all of it was so cool. But, Russ Howard did give me a doughnut while in the TSN booth and Rachel Homan photobombed some of our pictures so that was kind of cool. I had lots of family and friends text me once they saw some of the photos my mom posted and the Canadian Curling Association put on their Facebook and Twitter. My sister is friends with Cole Tenetiuk so it was cool that we also got to watch a game with him as he is the Canadian junior curling silver medalist. It was all just so much fun.”