Curling and politics

I'll post some photos of the Mixed Curling finals and offer up some last thoughts of the entire event later. I only got home from the awards banquet a short time ago and I'm kind of wiped out. But I did have this interesting discussion and I think it's worth mentioning and something possibly of interest.

I'd completely forgotten that our new premier, Eva Aariak, is actually a member of the Iqaluit Curling Club. And that she is, in fact, not a bad curler. She normally curls with Hunter Tootoo, who skips. However, Hunter is now a cabinet minister in her government. Odds are he's about to become Nunavut's new health minister as he's been the main critic of the department for years.

Granted, given how busy their lives are about to become, I don't know how much time they're going to have for curling, but there is some amusement to be had at the thought of a government minister yelling at the premier to "hurry hard!" and other such curling euphemisms.

But here's the other kicker for me. I don't think it's much of a secret in curling circles that the Iqaluit Curling Club and the Nunavut Curling Association have been pushing hard for Nunavut to be allowed to start sending teams to some national competitions. Specifically, we'd love to have teams at the 2010 Mixed Nationals and Juniors. This would mean a playdown with teams from all three territories playing down or, ideally, all three territories enter their own individual teams from now on.

And hey, Eva and Hunter aren't bad curlers. It's not beyond the realm they could represent either Nunavut or all the Territories at a National Mixed championship.

So has a premier ever made it to a national event as one of the competitors before? Because that would be really kind of cool.

Last Five
1. Fleeting trust - The Trews
2. Square one - Tom Petty*
3. Good to me - Brendon Benson
4. Can't stop - Maroon 5
5. Still crazy after all these years - Paul Simon