Registered: Jan 2015
Location: GTA
Posts: 2

Hi all!

I am a Canadian curler that also holds Irish citizenship. I am wondering if there are any Canadians with Irish ancestry in Canada who would be willing to create a team that would live and train in Canada and travel to Europe for qualifying competitions. Presently, I'm living abroad but will be moving back to Canada for 2016. This is just to see if I should train with the team in Scotland or if I can bring a group of Irish Canadian curlers together to compete and train in the strongest curling nation!

Preferably, I would love to find a full men's team, but also a strong female curler to form a mixed doubles team would be great as well.

Many of you may actually qualify even if, at present, you don't hold an Irish passport. If you have a parent, or grandparents, born in Ireland, you are eligible for citizenship.

If you have any interest, or know of someone who may be interested, do not hesitate to contact me with questions. This is more to see what kind of numbers we may or may not have.

If you would like to see more information about the Irish Curling Association (based out of Scotland), please visit their website at http://www.irish-curling.org/

If you would like to see if you are eligible for Irish citizenship, please visit the following site. http://www.citizensinformation.ie/e...sh_citizen.html

I look forward to hearing from you. I will most likely be based in the GTA, but not set in stone.

Cheers,

David

Last edited by irish_canadian on 01-20-15 at 10:41PM

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Registered: Jan 2015
Location: Scotland
Posts: 2

David - great to see your post . Yes Ireland are always looking for players so it would be great to hear from you.


Team Israel completed in the 2014 Europeans with a couple of players from Canada (Quebec and Toronto) and some from USA so the path is ready to be followed

Getting to euro B is the first priority and with the continued development of the game in Eastern Europe Irish curling needs to draw on every resource

International curling is a great opportunity with the chance to play against some of the worlds best teams one that very few experience.

With a small national association such as Ireland the opportunity is very tangible and I would encourage anyone with Irish links to get in touch.

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What is the criteria? Would there be try outs...what makes a person qualified to be on the team? What if there are 20-50 players who feel they are good enough and want to be on the Irish team? Is it forst come first serve..or would this be a open competition? Many unanswered questions. If it means a possible Olympic berth..I am quite cewrtain the response will be large and an open competion would be needed...just my opinion. Pat Ryan comes to mind for starters...

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Registered: Jan 2015
Location: Scotland
Posts: 2

There is already an existing team in place - so a team has to be formed and enter a "challenge"

It's the winning team of the challenge that represents Ireland

Criteria for eligibility is:-

Place of birth

Place of parents birth

Place of grand parents birth

Irish passport holder (by any other means)

There is a route to the Olympics open.

At present the team are in euro C league (along with countries such as Slovenia, Belarus, Serbia , Romania and france )

To qualify for euro B the team have to be 1st or 2nd in C which is in champery in October. B group is in Denmark in November. The top 2 from B go to A group while the winner of B can play in the 2016 worlds and gain olympic points....easy ;-)

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Registered: Jan 2015
Location: GTA
Posts: 2

In terms of criteria and route to the Olympics/Worlds (which Ireland has only qualified for once in the Men's division, but have won in the Senior Men's), there is a possibility, and as foxglide has mentioned, would have to occur with a challenge of a team during the national playdowns in March.

This is just to see what kind of Irish base there is in Canada to form a squad. People should inquire and email the Irish Curling Association if they're interested. I believe there was a female curler from California who flew out last year to compete with the Women's Team.

It would just be great to spread the sport in Ireland. They still don't have any dedicated ice and the ICA is based out of Scotland at the moment.

- Dave

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