KINGSTON, Ont. – In between ends, you can usually catch Brendan Bottcher casually sitting on the back padding waiting for play to resume.
It doesn’t matter if the 28-year-old skip just executed a highlight-reel shot to score a bunch or whiffed completely to give up a steal. Bottcher is always cool, calm and collected no matter the situation. Always.
“He truly is the machine that you see, that’s Brendan,” said his third Darren Moulding. “I’ve never really seen him lose it. He’s pretty unflappable. The guy has a good head on his shoulders, and I think he’s the greatest curling mentality in the game.”
That demeanour has gotten Bottcher and his Alberta rink to the Tim Hortons Brier playoffs for the third year in row. Alberta finished first after championship round play with a 10-1 record and will square off against Saskatchewan’s Matt Dunstone in the Page playoff 1 vs. 2 game on Saturday afternoon.
“I think it helps,” Bottcher said of his calm persona minutes after making an impressive game-winner to beat Team Wild Card 4-2 Friday night. “But we all have to be working together. And today I think we did a good job of that and all week we’ve been doing a good job of that. If I can add a bit of a calming influence on the guys, then I’ll certainly try to.”
Alberta’s foursome of Bottcher, Moulding, Bradley Thiessen and Karrick Martin have been rolling on all cylinders this week at Leon’s Centre, with their only loss coming to Canada’s Kevin Koe Thursday after a rare late-game miss from Bottcher.
But a lot of the stories around Team Bottcher this week have been about what’s happened to them in the past. Bottcher joined Al Hackner and Guy Hemmings as the only skips in history to lose in back-to-back Brier finals last year after dropping the championship tilt to Koe in Brandon. He lost to Brad Gushue in the 2018 final in Regina. No skip has lost three in a row.
So, did Bottcher dwell on those stinging championship losses?
“Not too long. I think some guys would dwell on it maybe a little longer than I did personally,” Bottcher told TSN.ca earlier this week. “They were both amazing weeks and were really good accomplishments in themselves. It’s always a bit crappy to lose that last game, but that’s kind of how it goes.”
Bottcher: We’re two wins against two of the best teams in the world away
Skip Brendan Bottcher knows that getting into the one vs two page playoff game is a big step into capturing his first ever Brier title but knows that he still has a tough task ahead of him with several top teams still in the mix.
It’s appears Bottcher’s mentality is starting to rub off on other members of his rink as well.
“I think it’s confidence. I think it’s playing for each other. I know for me, and think the rest of the team would agree, we have a theory that if you prepare and try as hard as you can on every shot, then no matter the result, you’re OK with that,” said Moulding. “That’s what I kind of remind myself every time I get upset or feel like things are slipping away, I just remind myself to work as hard as can, do as well as I can all the time, then at least I won’t regret anything.”
Martin says he’s very similar to Bottcher in that way on the ice.
“I think that’s the way you go to be in those high-pressure situations,” he said. “Darren is there to bring us up if we need it. We know if there’s a shot to be made, Brendan is going to make it.”
Two-time Brier champ Don Bartlett was brought on to serve as coach for Team Bottcher this week in Kingston after a trial run at the Canada Cup in November went swimmingly. He says Bottcher’s way of thinking is what you need to win at this level.
“Nothing fazes him. Bad end. Bad shot. He gets over it real quick and that’s a sign of a champion,” said Bartlett, who also calls Bottcher one of the greatest shooters in the game right now.
The 59-year-old Bartlett, who spent his best years as a lead for Kevin Martin’s rink, knows what it’s like to lose in a final at a major event. Bartlett settled for silver at the 1985 and 1996 Briers, the 1991 world championships and the toughest of them all, the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
“I’ve always said ‘fear the team that lost last year’s final.’ They’ve lost two, so hopefully that’s enough,” he said.
Moulding, a 37-year-old head ice technician from Lacombe, Alta., says they could use the experiences from those Brier losses to propel them forward.
“We’re proud with how we’ve done. It’s hard to make it to the Brier final,” he said. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Both games in the finals were great. We feel confident. We want another shot at it.”
The Page playoff 1 vs. 2 game goes Saturday at 2 pm ET on TSN 1/3/4.
Olympic champion Maggie Mac Neil announced her retirement from swimming Thursday.
The gold medallist in the women’s 100-metre butterfly at Tokyo’s Summer Games in 2021 made the announcement in an Instagram post alongside a photo of her swimming as a child.
“The little girl above would have never dreamed this is where her love of swimming would take her,” Mac Neil wrote. “I am so grateful for all the memories, people, and places I have gotten to experience just through swimming.
“I’m excited to begin the next chapter of my life journey, as I embark on discovering who I am outside of swimming.”
The 24-year-old from London, Ont., earned a complete set of medals in Tokyo after helping relay teams to silver and bronze medals.
Mac Neil’s five gold medals at the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile, were the most by a Canadian athlete at a single Pan Am Games.
She was fifth in butterfly and was a member of two women’s relay teams that finished fourth at the recent Olympic Games in Paris.
“Anyone who I crossed paths with never, ever told me I couldn’t achieve my goal of going to the Olympics,” Mac Neil wrote. “It’s still surreal to be able to say I’m a two-time Olympian.”
She completed her master’s degree in sport management at Louisiana State University this year.
Born in China and adopted by Dr. Susan McNair and Dr. Edward MacNeil, Mac Neil’s mother wanted her to take swimming lessons for safety reasons because of the family’s backyard pool.
Mac Neil’s 2017 diagnosis of sport-induced asthma — which can be triggered by the swimming staples of heat and chlorine — forced a switch from longer distances to sprints.
Mac Neil became Canada’s first world champion in the women’s 100-metre butterfly two years later.
The nearsighted Mac Neil, who doesn’t wear contacts or prescription goggles, has seen multiple times a meme of her squinting hard at the scoreboard in Tokyo as she tried to decipher her result.
“I like to think it helps because I can’t see where other people are and I’m able to focus on my own race,” Mac Neil said before the Olympic Games in Paris. “That was definitely the case in Tokyo.
“I got that meme sent to me at least three times in January even though it’s been three years since.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 26, 2024.
NYON, Switzerland (AP) — Serbia and Albania are set to co-host the men’s Under-21 European Championship in 2027 in a soccer project that aims to overcome political tensions.
UEFA said Thursday only the Serbia-Albania bid met a deadline this week to file detailed tournament plans. Belgium and Turkey had declared interest earlier in the bidding process scheduled to be decided at a Dec. 16 meeting of the UEFA executive committee.
The Serbian and Albanian soccer federations teamed up in May to plan organization of the 16-team tournament played every two years that needs eight stadiums to host 31 games.
Albania soccer federation leader Armand Duka, who is a UEFA vice president, told The Associated Press in May that “it’s a 100% football project” with “a very good political message that we can get across.”
Weeks later at the men’s European Championship held in Germany, historic tensions between the Balkan countries — which in soccer included a notorious drone incident at a Serbia-Albania game in 2014 — played out at separate games involving their senior teams.
An Albania player was banned for games by UEFA for using a megaphone to join fans in nationalist chants, including targeting Serbia, after a Euro 2024 game against Croatia. Fans of Albania and Croatia earlier joined in anti-Serb chants, leading UEFA to impose fines for discrimination.
UEFA also fined both the Albanian and Serbian federations in separate incidents at Euro 2024 for fans displaying politically motivated banners about neighboring Kosovo.
After historic tensions were heightened by the 1990s Balkans conflicts, in 2008 majority ethnic Albanians in Kosovo declared independence for the former Serbian province. Serbia refuses to recognize that independence and considers Kosovo the cradle of its statehood.
An Albanian fans group daubed red paint on the federation offices in May when the cooperation with Serbian soccer for the Under-21 Euros was announced.
“We did have a few negative reactions from fans, mainly, and some interest groups,” Duka said then, “but not from the Albania government.”
UEFA has shown broad support for Serbia and Albania under its president, Aleksander Ceferin, who is from Slovenia.
The next annual congress of UEFA’s 55 national federations is in the Serbian capital Belgrade on April 3, and an executive committee meeting in September 2025 will be held in Tirana, Albania.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia’s mayor has revealed the terms of the deal negotiated with the city’s pro basketball team for a new $1.3 billion arena downtown.
The agreement reached earlier this month calls for the Philadelphia 76ers to finance the entire project, with no city funding involved. There is, however, a provision that would let the NBA team make annual payments in lieu of taxes averaging $6 million per year. The agreement also calls for a $50 million investment in businesses, neighboring communities and the city’s schools to blunt the project’s impact, Mayor Cherelle Parker said during a news conference Wednesday night.
“I truly am proud having made this decision and negotiated an agreement that will definitely ensure that our Sixers are staying home right here in Philadelphia, where they should be,” Parker said.
City officials also released drafts of the nine bills and two resolutions needed to authorize the project, including measures that allow the city to acquire the arena property and change zoning rules. Parker said her administration would hold a series of town halls in the coming months where residents could discuss concerns about the proposal.
Team owners say their planned “76 Place” project would improve a struggling retail corridor near City Hall and capitalize on the city’s public transit. They also have vowed not to renew the lease on their current space, a circa 1996 arena in the city’s South Philadelphia sports complex, when their lease runs out in 2031.
The proposal has drawn significant opposition from activists in the city’s Chinatown area, who fear it would disrupt or displace residents and businesses. They say the city has ignored concerns that the project will increase vehicle traffic in their pedestrian-friendly neighborhood and force vulnerable residents — older people, low-income families and new immigrants — to move out. Parker on Wednesday renewed her pledge to preserve the area, which is just over a block from the proposed arena site.
If ultimately approved by the City Council, demolition work in the area would begin in 2026 with construction starting two years later. Officials hope to open the arena in time for the 76ers’ 2031-32 season.
