The Times Advocate, 2008-12-24, Page 26rit)
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26 Times -Advocate
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Exeter native heading to China for curling championship
By Ben Forrest
TIMES -ADVOCATE STAFF
EXETER Take a poll of elite hockey
players and many will tell you they were
on skates when they were barely out of dia-
pers and playing the game by the time they
reached Kindergarten.
Exeter native Scott McGregor is perhaps
not of this ilk when it comes to curling,
but he is 20 years old and has been hurling
stones roughly half his life.
He was drawn into the sport by a friend,
played it during his days at South Huron
District High School, and now plies the
trade at Wilfrid Laurier University, where
he is also studying business.
In March of 2008 he was the fifth man on
a Laurier team that won a national univer-
sity championship.
In February 2009 that team will head to
Harbin, China, to compete in the Univer-
siade a competition McGregor describes
as an Olympics for university athletes,
where Laurier will face off against top col-
lege players from around the globe.
These are heady, busy times for the Ex-
eter Public School graduate, who has had
to scale back his course load to make room
for all this curling.
He aims to continue, though. Asked last
week if he wants to continue playing on the
world stage, he did not hesitate to say yes.
I want to keep getting back there if pos-
sible, he said.
It was in Grade 9 that McGregor decided
to scuttle other sports and get serious about
playing on pebbled ice.
I like the social aspect of it, he said. I
know people from all over Ontario, from
Rockin it Scott McGregor, who
hails from Exeter, is seen here with his
Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS)
championship medal, earned in March.
The medal qualified McGregor and
his teammates for the Universiade, an
Olympic -type event for university stu-
dents taking place in China in the new
year.(photo/Ben Forrest)
other countries, different provinces now
because of curling.
After the game you usually sit down
with the other team and you just kind of
talk and hang out. It s a really social game
yet really competitive at the same time, so
I like that.
It is the type of game where those who
battle during competition become friends
afterward.
Most of the time, anyway.
There s always teams you re not too fond
of, he admitted, but for the most part you
like most teams.
After his Grade 10 year, McGregor at-
tended a curling camp, where he found
many like-minded individuals and decid-
ed he would like to go super competitive
into the sport.
His involvement in curling was such that
much of his social life revolved around the
sport.
Probably three of my best friends in high
school were my curling team, he said.
Yeah, my social life became pretty much
curling.
McGregor played for both his high school
team and in the Ontario Junior Curling Tour
(OJCT), which found him travelling to com-
petitions in Toronto, London, the Waterloo
Region and Kingsville, near Windsor.
Teams come from Sudbury, Ottawa [to
those competitions], he said. In Toronto,
you have a team that flies in from Switzer-
land.
This year is McGregor s last at the junior
level, and he would like to win a champi-
onship before moving into men s play.
With his other commitments, though, it
might be hard to manage.
There is the China trip, which will last
three weeks, and his duties on the Laurier
varsity team, which is trying to repeat as
national champions. Then of course there
are his studies.
This last semester I played in a lot of
cash spiels and I probably missed seven or
eight weekends, which is a lot to miss for
studying purposes, McGregor said.
Next semester it will be a lot more, and
I m already a little stressed about it because
I miss three weeks for China and I have
provincials the first week back and nation-
als and stuff.
I m not sure how that will work out
It s really my goal to do well in curling. I
also want to do well in business, but I ve
gotta do well in both.
The trip to China lies in the near future,
however, and McGregor admits he is get-
ting excited about it.
When we won the national champion-
ship back in March, it just felt like it was so
long away back then, he said. But now
that we re getting within less than two
months until we go yeah, I m getting a lot
more antsy about it for sure.
The team will depart Feb. 15 and come
back March 4 two weeks devoted to com-
petition and one reserved for seeing Beijing
and the Great Wall.
McGregor plans to continue curling be-
yond his university days. His post -gradu-
ate plans include making it to The Brier, the
Canadian men s curling championship.
His plans for a career outside the sport re-
main unclear, but McGregor is contemplat-
ing the world of finance.
I want to be a financial advisor, some-
thing like that, he said. I think that d be
really interesting.
McGregor is the son of Exeter dentist Dr.
William McGregor and Susan McGregor.
Before closing an interview, Scott sought to
tip his hat to Cathy Pfaff, his high school
coach.
Without her, he said, he probably wouldn t
have gotten so far into curling.
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