You know I never lost belief in myself
Cheering
The most experienced junior competitor of all time, Brad Gushue
Everybody is just having a good time. They’re a great bunch of guys and I love them to death.
Honestly, are my arms okay like this, I don’t know.
I started curling when my when my parents kind of came from a curling family
So I started my dad Peter and my mom Kathy both represent PEI at the scotties and brier
My parents both curled, growing up in a small town in Labrador that was my winter
As a kid we’d go down and watch them
And then when I started playing I was 11 years old
I’d start playing in the junior league, I’d start playing once a week for a couple of hours
When I first started my grandfather took me down to the rink. Most times my parents were curling themselves
I think my love for the sport was kind of through him
I was introduced to curling when I was probably 11 or 12 years old
I used to watch it after school with my mom, watch the Scotties tournaments hearts and the brier
During the month of February and March
I fell in love with the game and wanted to play but didn't know anybody that played
And the next year actually after I started watching it
I heard an announcement at school that you could join for $20.00 for after school curling
I was begging my mom and got my sister involved and she begged my mom and finally they agreed to set us up.
We came down and fell in love with it right away.
My first day of curling was the first day of my last day of hockey
Because once I started curling I knew I didn’t want to play hockey anymore.
That kind of upset my dad at the start but
he kind of came along I guess after he saw the success.
We are very family oriented and I think Kubota is very like very kind of family company
Curling is a small community family based sort of sport out there
Kubota is very similar, they are very similar - they are very family oriented, community oriented
You know integrity is a big part of our team as well
I think we try and treat the fans, our supporters, our sponsors,
our opponents, competitors, with integrity and you know
with a certain level of empathy as well
We wouldn’t be able to really compete at the level we do without the support and Kubota allows us to focus on curling
Focus on being able to spend time with our families when we are not competing
Just being able to afford to travel across the country to do what we love
It started a few years ago when Brad reached out to me by email initially
and expressed an interest with partnering with Newfoundland Kubota at the time
and asking our interest in whether or not we’d be interested in partnering in sponsoring his team
Of course the answer would have been yes automatically
Brad was at that point was a champion many times over
Around the world international sports star that we were extremely proud of in this province
And the fact that he reached out to us
It was really exciting, I was a little star struck
And I said to him, Brad what you need is far an excess of what we can do here
I would like to reach out to Kubota Canada and see if they would be interested in partnering with you
One of the nicest things since we’ve been we’ve been with Kubota,
is that when we’re in a town that has a Kubota dealership when competing
We stop for an afternoon, we’ll do a meet and greet with some of our fans, the Kubota dealers, with the staff there
We get to have some really good interactions with some of our biggest fans at these events
And have meaningful conversations rather than you know, seeing them in the stands
These athletes are well connected with the community
For example, Brad has been to our dealership a number of times with his team
He came here last year and wanted to drive our tractors so we took advantage of that, took some pictures,
Gave them some mugs that they graciously took to their next tournament
We create a partnership
with these sponsors that allows us to meet their employees, you know , the communities that they are in
And hopefully giveback to those communities as well
Curling athletes need sponsors like Kubota
Especially in Canada because we are essentially competing against full time professional curlers
Countries like Sweden and Scotland they are funded by either their government or governing bodies
And commit 40, 50, 60 hours a week to the game
And here in Canada we don’t we don’t have that luxury
Having sponsors like Kubota
allow us to spend a little more time to practicing, training, and competing
It gives us the luxury of being able to travel to whichever event we want,
no matter where it is in the world
It allows us to get better
It allows us access to coaching, equipment
Even technology, it's a big part of the game right now so
And having access to that, it isn’t cheap
When you have the support of sponsors
it allows you to do those things
I’m still get goosebumps talking about it,
legitimately, I’m very proud of it and I’ll talk about it until the day I die
We’re kind of Batman and Robin
Or Thelma and Louise however you want to phrase it
We’re kind of a pair that's known for being together in the curling world