Don and Nancy Sheppard are seen here after winning provincials. /Brighton and District Curling Club Facebook photo
Brighton’s Don and Nancy Sheppard are representing Northumberland and the province at the National Stick Curling Championship in Nova Scotia this week.
The husband-and-wife team from the Brighton and District Curling Club earned their ticket to nationals after returning home as Ontario champions in the mixed two-person division at the Provincial Stick Curling Playdowns held on Forest, Ont. earlier this year.
As previously reported, the couple started making the drive to Wolfville, N.S. last weekend.
Opening ceremonies were Wednesday, and the competition gets underway today (Thursday, March 26) – and if the champs have their way, they’ll be looking to sweep the competition over the coming days.
“I would just like to give a great big shoutout to the Brighton curling club,” Nancy told MBC before the couple headed out to compete for the national title.
With the curling club spearheading fundraisers and the like to help the couple leading up to their big trip and more, both the Sheppards were feeling the love in the community while preparing for their championship journey.
“They did the same when Caroline (Watt) and I played in the ladies – (it’s been) incredible support from the curling club,” said Nancy, noting she doesn’t know of any other clubs to rally for their members like this over the years.
Club President Lisa Donovan also reached out to council earlier calling on the municipality to show its support for the long-time Brightonians through a $1,000 grant-in-aid request.
“We are so very proud of them,” Donovan told council earlier this week, but noted travel and expenses for the week-long competition are “significant” and asked the municipality to consider helping offset some of the financial burden as the couple represents Brighton and Ontario at the national event.
Mayor Brian Ostrander said council answered the call.
The municipality also previously supported the ladies in 2024, and they went on to be crowned national champions in that competition.
“We hope we’ll be playing Sunday,” said an optimistic Nancy.
Two-person stick is big out west and in the east in Canada, but Ontario is slowly catching on to the sport and this form of curling, said Nancy.
“This is another version of curling – like you’ve seen mixed doubles where two people play and then they run and sweep – this (has) no sweeping,” she explained.
In other words, it translates to a quicker game.
In Nova Scotia, there’s the championship and challenge divisions – and the Sheppards are among 12 teams in the championship round for the mixed. The competition continues until this Sunday, March 29.
(Written by: Sarah Hyatt)
