Report: Pigs seen flying as Citizen sends reporter to cover curling

Ottawa seems to be excited about the prospect of a winning sports team for once (that was an intended shot at the local hockey team) and so its main rag, the Citizen took note. The talented Gord Holder drew the short straw was shipped over to Latvia to cover the Rachel Homan rink’s attempt at winning a world championship. 

If that sounds unusual, well. . . . it is. I can’t remember the last time an Ottawa paper sent a reporter to a curling event other than the City of Ottawa bonspiel. The town has had a few moments of curling glory -- there was, um, ah, John Morris winning the world junior and Bryan Cochrane's whistle at the Brier.

But even the Homan team was surprised that there was a scribbler from their town. 

Follow @holdergord! RT @curling: @ottawacitizen ships reporter overseas for curling – 1st time since... ever? bit.ly/XF53Z3
— Team Homan (@TeamHoman) March 15, 2013

Holder, a wonderful writer, talks about how the team has learned to deal with adversity, recounting how the rink handled the famous fifth-end burned stone by Lisa Weagle. 

“There was no blame. I apologized. Nobody on the sheet felt worse than I did. Basically they said, ‘Don’t worry about it. Let’s move on.’ Rachel (Homan, the team’s skip) had a shot to score a point, and that’s what we needed.“She threw it great and we swept it right, and we got out of the end. We move on from that.”

The most recent tough spot for the team of late didn't come on the ice but was simply trying to get to Riga

The hardest part might have been physcially getting here from Ottawa. Their journey took more than 40 hours, 24 of which were spent in the Frankfurt Airport, which closed when a major snow storm swept through Europe, cancelling thousands of flights.

Overall, this could be the longest curling story ever to appear in the Citizen and it’s worth the read.