Team Kleibrink

BCNG Portals Page - Olympian welcomed home

Olympian welcomed home
By Erika Baltrus
ECHO REPORTER
Dec 21 2005

Christine Keshen hugs former high school curling coach Bill Robinson during a special welcome home ceremony for the Winter Olympics-bound curler. Echo photo by Erika Baltrus

Invermere will no longer be described as the town on Lake Windermere. It will be Invermere: Home of Olympian Christine Keshen. Half of the town turned out on Dec. 17 to welcome Keshen home at a reception held at the Joe Peters Curling Centre.
“All across Canada young boys and young girls play sports for fun but they also dream about wearing a maple leaf and going to play in the Olympics,” said District of Invermere (DOI) Mayor Mark Shmigelsky. “So many people watch the Olympics, but now we have an even greater reason to watch, and a more special one, because we have one of our own in it. On behalf of the DOI and our whole community we’d like to offer you congratulations, and when you come back with the gold medal, we’ll have a big parade.” . [More….]

The ChronicleHerald.ca - Curling champ has baby in tow

Curler Glenys Bakker holds her four-month-old daughter. (ERIC WYNNE / Staff)

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By KRISTEN LIPSCOMBE
Staff Reporter

HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA
Friday December 16, 2005

Tucked snuggly inside her baby carriage, four-month-old Sara Marie Bakker slept peacefully Saturday at the Halifax Metro Centre, unaware that on the ice down below the Olympic dreams of her mother’s curling team were about to come true.

It seems mother-of-two Glenys Bakker can do it all — from helping her Calgary-based squad secure themselves a spot in the 2006 Winter Olympic Games to nursing her new baby mid-match.

Mrs. Bakker, 43, likely took a lesson from her own mother, Faye Kindt, who watched anxiously as her daughter helped Team Kleibrink edge Kelowna’s Team Scott 8-7 in the final of the Tim Hortons Roar of the Rings Canadian Curling Trials, while keeping a close eye on her happily snoozing granddaughter.

“The hubbies and the team members have been helping and have been a wonderful support,” Ms. Kindt said of how Mrs. Bakker, now on maternity leave from her job as a legal assistant, has successfully been juggling motherhood and a blossoming curling career.

“I’ve been travelling with her all fall and it’s been an exciting experience for me.

“The baby’s been just a real treasure.”

“She’s just been a bit of soul — she eats and sleeps and changes her pants and she’s set,” Ms. Kindt said with a chuckle.

Although Mrs. Bakker’s busy life “takes a lot of working at it,” Ms. Kindt said the baby and 2-and-a-half-year-old Ryan Glen “have been good kids” and are extremely proud of their mom.

And now all the family members of skip Shannon Kleibrink’s squad have reason to be ecstatic for their hardworking loved ones — they’re headed to Torino, Italy, in February to represent Canada.

More than 8,000 curling fans filled the seats to see which team would win that much sought after trip to the Olympics, an attendance number called “remarkable” by the president of the event’s host committee. The support for the event is especially incredible considering the heavy snowfall dumped on Nova Scotia overnight Friday, Graham Harris said.

“There were quite a number of volunteers that couldn’t get in because power has been out all night,” Mr. Harris said Saturday. “The weather played havoc with us for sure.”

Mr. Harris said although Team Kleibrink may have come out on top Saturday, all the ladies who participated in The Roar of The Rings this year “have raised the bar” for curlers across the country.

“When you look at the field that’s here for this week, there’s not one weak one amongst them,” he said. “They’re playing very well.”

Mr. Harris said this week’s Canadian Curling Trials will be “the largest attended curling function in Atlantic Canada,” with upwards of 160,000 people taking in curling over the course of this week. That number will break attendance records set by the Halifax Nokia Brier in 2003.

Ada and Sam Waye of Jeddore watched in anticipation as the finals unfolded but they weren’t cheering for anyone in particular.

In true maple leaf spirit, the cheerful couple was decked out in matching red and white jackets, eager to watch Canada’s elite athletes in action.

Mr. Waye said curling is one of the few sports where each and every fan will sing O Canada beforehand and pick up their garbage afterwards, out of respect for each other and their sport.

His wife agreed wholeheartedly.

“It’s really one of the finest games in all of the sports,” Mrs. Waye said with a smile.

“Curling is the one game where every fan cheers for every shot, no matter who makes it.”

( klipscombe@herald.ca)

© 2005 The Halifax Herald Limited

BCNG Portals Page - Local curler Olympics-bound

Christine Keshen, seen with former high school coach Barry Gillies, is heading to the Winter Olympics in Italy as part of Canada’s Women’s Curling Team. Echo file photo by Erika Baltrus

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By Erika Baltrus
ECHO REPORTER
Dec 14 2005

The entire valley community felt of surge of pride on Saturday when Invermere’s own Christine Keshen and her curling team won the opportunity to attend the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.

Team Kleibrink made a stunning win in the final game of the Tim Hortons Canadian Curling Trials on Dec. 10 against Team Scott, ensuring them a trip to the Olympics.

Keshen described to The Echo the final moments when skip Shannon Kleibrink made the winning throw.

“I don’t think I can even describe the emotions, especially since we were down two coming home with hammer. We had expected to get two in that end and go to another end and be forced to steal,” Keshen noted. “That’s a tough position to be in. It’s pretty mentally stressful.

“We suddenly set up the end and realized we might get three here. When Shannon had the open hit for the win, I was shaking. I could sort of tell that we had it by the tone in Amy’s voice. I could start to hear the excitement. We just started jumping up and down. We knew we’d made the shot and everyone just started running.”

Keshen plays lead with Kleibrink, third Amy Nixon, and second Glenys Bakker. She attributes the success of the team that is based out of Calgary to the diversity of the members.

“There are four very, very different people and that can be challenging but every one person on this team brings a little something different to the core, to that mix,” she revealed. “With that mix it is the right balance to make an ultimate team. We are all at different stages in our lives and we all have totally different backgrounds and personal lives and careers. Amy has been through a lot with her mother being ill. Shannon and I have both quit our jobs and have made a lot of sacrifices personally and professionally. Glenys had a baby in August and she’s been carrying around the baby, feeding the baby at the fifth end break. We’re able to overcome anything that is thrown in our path and we feel like we can do anything because we’ve been through so much.”

Already life has changed for the foursome. Keshen joked that she suddenly understands how Britney Spears feels, being hounded by fans and supporters. After a break for Christmas, when she will come home to Invermere, it all begins.

“We have one day off in three or four months and then we are owned basically for the next two years so it is going to be an exciting ride,” she said.

Team Kleibrink will be shipping out to Switzerland where they will be playing in the biggest international women’s ’spiel in Bern, and then they are off to take a site tour of Turin.

“People are coming up to us and cheering ‘Go Team Canada’ and I’m just thinking wow, we’re Team Canada!” Keshen mused. “When you bring that many people together who have such strong desire, dedication, goals and heart, I think the energy there is going to be so awesome and I am so looking forward to being a part of Team Canada. We all want the same goal and we’re all going to be cheering for each other and I am so stoked to be a part of that bigger unit.”

Keshen is also very proud to have her roots in the valley.

“I can’t wait to get back there. I’m stoked to bring my medal and share it with the community. I’m so proud to be an Inver-merian. That community has really helped me along. I could feel that everyone was behind me 100%, with the messages that were sent and all the best wishes. Going in here I felt that it wasn’t just a personal accomplishment, that it’s a bigger thing. My roots stem from there and I just want to make sure the community shares it with me.”

She especially wanted to note her coaches who helped her get her start in curling at David Thompson Secondary School.
“Bill Robinson and Barry Gillies were my two coaches back in high school. Every time I win something big, I always want to make sure that they know that I think about them.”

Gillies and Robinson are both thrilled for Keshen and her successes but both brush off any real credit for where she’s made it.
“Barry was certainly the main coach,” said Robinson. “She’s pretty well self-taught but I’m happy to have been even a small part of her success and I can only wish her well.”

Gillies also thinks his role was very small “but it was a thrill for me to see her win. “Probably the biggest influence I had on her was turning her onto the game of curling. But she’s a very athletic and intelligent girl and she knows how to set goals for herself and go after it. The rest of it she did on her own. I just think it’s absolutely wonderful. How many times do you have an Olympian represent your town?”

© Copyright 2005 Invermere Valley Echo

Shannon Kleibrink

Shannon Kleibrink (born October 7, 1968 in Norquay, Saskatchewan) is a Canadian curler from Calgary, Alberta. Her, and her team of third Amy Nixon, second Glenys Bakker, lead Christine Keshen and alternate Sandra Jenkins will represent Canada at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.

Kleibrink made her debut at the 1993 Scott Tournament of Hearts, Canada’s national curling championship where her team of Sandra Jenkins, Sally Shigehiro and Joanne Wright finished 6-5 representing team Alberta.

Kleibrink wouldn’t qualify for the Scotts again until 2004, but in the mean time she would make it to the final of the 1997 Olympic Trials. At the trials, where the winner would go on to play for Canada at the 1998 Winter Olympics, Kleibrink would lose in the final to Sandra Schmirler.

In 2004 Kleibrink became the first woman to win a Canadian Mixed Curling Championship as skip, which she did 2004. She was also the first woman to skip a team at the mixed, when she did so the previous year, where she lost in the final.

The same year, at the 2004 Scott Tournament of Hearts, Kleibrink and her team of Amy Nixon, Glenys Bakker and Stephanie Marchand would finish 6-5, out of the playoffs.

In 2005, Kleibrink would win the Canada Cup of Curling where she beat Jan Betker in the final. Later on that year, Kleibrink would qualify for the Olympics, when they beat Kelly Scott’s team from Kelowna, British Columbia at the 2005 Canadian Olympic trials. Kleibrink’s team began the tournament at 1-3 before winning seven straight games to qualify. In the final end of the championship game, Kleibrink scored 3 points to win the match 8-7.

Kleibrink works as a production assistant at Chevron Canada Resources.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon_Kleibrink

SLAM! Sports - Curling - Rolling out the red carpet

Kleibrink rink returns to fanfare

By ANGELA MACISAAC – Calgary Sun

Less than a month ago, Shannon Kleibrink, Amy Nixon, Glenys Bakker and Christine Keshen walked through the WestJet doors at Calgary airport.

They were returning home from Abbotsford, after getting knocked out of the quarter-final of a cashspiel.

Nixon turned to Keshen and said: “The next time we come through these doors, there will be a huge crowd waiting for us.”

The crowd was big yesterday as family and friends welcomed the four Calgary women home from Halifax, where they became Canada’s curling team for the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, Feb. 10-26.

“There’s our crowd,” said a beaming Keshen, who had no trouble soaking up the spotlight.

“I was actually shaking when I was coming down the stairs.

“This is so awesome. I just can’t explain this feeling. It’s a relief but there’s so much to do now.”

Uh, that’s an understatement.

The Kleibrink foursome, which dispatched Kelowna’s Kelly Scott 8-7 with a three-ender in the 10th Saturday, surrenders itself to the Canadian Curling Association and the Canadian Olympic Committee.

The women, including fifth Sandra Jenkins from Salmon Arm, B.C., get a few weeks to enjoy the holidays before being whisked off to Switzerland for a spiel against many of the European teams they’ll face in Turin.

Then it’s off to Kamloops for the Strauss Canada Cup, which they won last spring. They’ve figured out they’re home for less than two weeks in January and just two days in February.

The first step is accepting they’re Olympians.

Kleibrink, a 37-year-old mother of two, acknowledged the whirlwind in which her team is caught up — and the pressure that comes along with being a curler representing Canada.

After all, only the late Sandra Schmirler, who beat Kleibrink at the 1997 trials in Brandon, has won curling gold at the Olympics.

“We realize what’s expected of us,” said Kleibrink, grinning from ear to ear. “But we’re ready. There’s no greater honour than competing for Canada and we’ll do our very best to bring back gold.

“But we’re just still curlers. It’s kind of hard to think of ourselves as Olympians just yet.”

The road ahead for Bakker becomes logistically difficult, though. She’s still nursing three-month-old Sara and she’s not sure whether she and husband Adrian will leave her daughter and three-year-old son, Ryan, behind in Calgary.

“This is a dream that has been 10 years in the making,” Bakker said, recalling the journey she started in Brandon with Kleibrink.

“I always told Shannon we’d go together some day. And it’s kind of funny because Sandra was in my shoes 10 years ago.”

Schmirler had two young children, including a three-month-old daughter, at home. But she managed to handle the situation with poise and brought home the gold.

“When she won, I remember her breaking down and saying, ‘How am I going to do this?’ At the time, I didn’t really feel a lot of empathy for her because you’re going to the Olympics,” said Bakker, tears streaming down her face. “How can you be sad about that? But now I totally understand how she felt.”

Copyright © 2005, Canoe Inc. All rights reserved.