CALGARY (CP) - From climbing mountains to hiring personal trainers, a new breed of competitor is sweeping away the stereotype that curlers aren't real athletes.
Halifax's Colleen Jones, the first winner of the Scott Tournament of Hearts back in 1982, was in her late thirties when she realized it was time to adopt a tough training regimen.
"That's when I took the fitness to a different level," said Jones, a six-time Canadian champion.
"Not that I wasn't in shape, but I went to a personal trainer who looked at curling and what muscle groups you are using and how you can make that muscle group stronger,"
Jones concedes that when she started the sport 25 years ago there was a different mindset. Many competitors were in poor shape and the sport had very little in the way of taboos.
"You could still smoke on the ice, you could drink beer on the ice and I remember those days like they were yesterday," she said.
"The image of the curler was you could be the biggest - out of shape, any size could do."
Former Canadian champion Jill Officer and her teammates, including skip Jennifer Jones, took offence at an in-house paper at the Canadian women's curling championship in London, Ont., this year labelling them the "most unfit team".
So Officer, 31, agreed to accompany her brother Rob and his fiancee on a 27-day trek to the base camp of Mount Everest that ended at 18,000 feet in late May. In the process, she learned what being in shape was all about.
"I actually had a bit of an emotional moment when we got to Kala Patthar because that was a really tough day to get up there," said Officer, second for Jones' 2005 Scott Tournament of Hearts champion rink.
"I cried because I was exhausted and emotional and really happy that both my brother and my pushing myself got myself to that."
It was an eye-opener.
"Since we won the Scott in 2005 I've had a trainer here in Brandon I was working with twice a week and then leading up to my trip she started changing my program," Officer said.
"In hindsight I could have been in (even) better shape, but I'm in the best shape of my life so I figured it was either now or never."
"It was such a challenge. It was the most difficult thing I've done in my life and I had to push myself to the limit to achieve what I had to achieve.
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The old image of the unfit curler is a thing of the past, she said.
"I think people need to realize that. Curling in an Olympic sport and now that we're getting that exposure on that international stage and we're getting funding for the sport and it's actually paying off for the sport.
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