Houston curler had great experience at national championships

Eryn Czirfusz became the first U21 curler from Houston to represent Team B.C. on the national stage as she and her team competed in the New Holland Canadian U21 Curling Championship in Stratford, Ontario in March, which took place from March 25 to Apr. 1.

Team B.C. finished with four wins and four losses, ending up in fifth place in their pool. Despite not taking home a trophy, Czirfusz told Houston Today that her first experience in national competition was a valuable one.

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“It was an amazing experience, I was able to meet so many new people from across the country who all are amazing curlers. I was also able to learn so much about what I can do moving forward to make myself a better curler from some of the more experienced teams like Team Stevens [Team Nova Scotia]. We were super lucky that our event had an incredible players lounge that was put on by the host committee, a great way to be able to make friends with all of our opponents outside of the arena,” she said.

“Also, having the opportunity to play on arena ice was a great learning experience, the atmosphere is very different from what we were used to. Having friends, family and fans in the stands that are not behind the glass, and hearing them all cheering for the amazing shots all the teams were making was truly amazing,” she continued.

Though Team B.C. didn’t win every game, Czirfusz says that they played at a very high level for the entire tournament.

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“I am so proud of how everyone on our team played, we definitely played some of our best games against these high level teams. Our first two games were against the two finalist teams. There was the odd end or two we let slip away from our grips, (but) we fought hard to keep the score close. We ended our week on a high note with a final win against Team Kleiter [Team Saskatchewan],” said Czirfusz.

“One of the biggest things I learned at this event was that when playing new teams we haven’t played before we need to really pick up on their strengths and weaknesses and learn how to know when is the right time to use a slightly different strategy based on how the other team likes to play. Another thing I took away from this week is that we can’t let the bad ends or losses get to you because at the end of the day we need to be able to take the positives out of each game and take them to learn for future games.”