Last week, the KW Granite Club hosted the 2013 Ontario Scotties Tournament of Hearts — a preliminary bonspiel for female curlers before the national championship in Kingston from Feb. 16-24.
And within that week, the Granite Club welcomed back two of their former university champions — and Wilfrid Laurier alumni.
Hollie Nicol and Danielle Inglis returned to Kitchener-Waterloo playing lead and second respectively for skip Jill Mouzar, who curls out of the Donalda Curling Club in Toronto.
Team Mouzar finished 3-5, failing to qualify for the page playoff.
Although both Nicol and Inglis have moved on since graduating from Laurier, they both consider their time as student athletes influenced their current lives.
“Playing for Laurier was a huge help,” Nicol said of her achievements after WLU.
“It was one of the few universities at the time that actually put a lot into their curling program so that definitely helped the university student in getting some financial support and other support so we really appreciated that.”
Nicol graduated in 2009 after curling for WLU for four very decorated years. She was a Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) Athlete of the Week twice, a women’s curling CIS champion twice, a CIS Academic All-Canadian twice, was awarded the Outstanding Women of Laurier Award and the Luke Fusco Academic Athletic Achievement Award in 2008-09 and was the team’s most valuable player all four years.
Inglis graduated in 2010 after curling with Laurier for three highly successful years of her own. During her tenure, she won two CIS championships, a CIS second-team all-canadian award and a CIS sportsmanship award and was the team’s most valuable player in 2009-10.
At the Ontario Scotties, Inglis was the recipient of the Shorty Jenkins Sportsmanship Award.
“Just the experience of playing at those championships are huge and experience matters so much that the fact we were able to do that really boosts your play,” Inglis said.
Both Nicol and Inglis also represented Laurier at the 24th Winter Universiade in 2009, winning a silver medal.
“I learned so much while I was at Laurier and those opportunities will stay with me forever,” Inglis said. “It opened so many doors for us because it wasn’t only recognized on a university level; it was recognized on a national level through the Canadian Curling Association.
“So we were able to get funding, Hollie and I, and well all of us actually became La Releve athletes, which meant we got funding through the government, we worked with some of the top coaches in Canada and the world and we had lots of great opportunities through there.”
Since graduating from WLU, Inglis pursued a post-graduate program at Humber College for public relations. She did a couple internships and currently works from home doing communications and writing.
Nicol pursued law school at Western University and recently graduated in April 2012. She just started articling in August 2012.
Although both have moved into their professional careers, they curl consistently with Team Mouzar at multiple bonspiels. The Ontario Scotties was Nicol’s first provincial championship.
“This week has been a lot of fun,” she said. “The last game [against Team Harrison] didn’t really matter to either team so we were just out there having fun, putting a lot of rocks in play.
“[But] this week has been great; it’s been amazing competition… it’s been a really good experience to play against the best teams in the province.”
