When the World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship 2025 got underway on Saturday in Fredericton, most eyes in the house were on the Canadian duo Jocelyn Peterman and Brett Gallant, as they opened their campaign on home ice.
Although they now live near Calgary, the husband and wife duo originally hail from Eastern Canada, making this even more of a home-ground tie.
As Jocelyn said, “The last time we were at the worlds was 2022, but we’ve never played in a Mixed Doubles Championship in Canada, so this is kind of fun for us… and it’s on the east coast so we have lots of friends around.”
Having family and friends in attendance is clearly one of the advantages of representing a host nation, and Brett and Jocelyn have taken that situation seriously with one of the faces among the crowd being their toddler son, Luke, who celebrates his second birthday shortly.
Luke’s proud parents are delighted to have him at the event. Jocelyn said, “Obviously, this is our first worlds with Luke, so it’s great to have him here. It’s fun hanging out with him after games. It also adds some perspective.”
Jocelyn also explained the practical background on how they are balancing taking part in elite competition and family duties. She said, “Our parents have him right now. He loves all our parents — they’re all staying at an Airbnb. This arrangement allows us to hang out with him when we have some free time, but it also allows us to focus on what we’re trying to do here.” She added, with a laugh, “he even came to visit us at the hotel last night!”
Turning to the competition itself, Jocelyn and Brett are facing the same Olympic qualification pressures, as are all the other teams, except Italy who, as host nation, are guaranteed a place in the Olympic line-up next February in Cortina. After a fifth-place finish in last year’s event, and with only seven direct qualification slots available, Canada sits uncomfortably close to the cut-off point that will come after this championship, making a good performance this week even more imperative.
Addressing that, Brett said, “A shot at the Olympic Games? Of course that puts added pressure on, but we’ve been in this situation before — we’ve just come out of the Canadian Olympic Trials, and we’ve also played in the Worlds together before, so I think that experience helps. So, we’ve experienced a trials mentality and a worlds mentality — this one just combines all that.”
He added, “For sure, there’s a little more extra pressure, but we feel that we’re ready for it. We’ve had that experience under our belts and it’s going to help us. We just need to try to control the things that we can control this week.”
And it looked like they were practising what they’re preaching, as they emerged as 10-5 winners over Germany in their opening round-robin game, finished off with a perfectly judged draw for four by Jocelyn in the seventh end. As Jocelyn said, “It was great to have a start like that, now we need to build on it.”
Her husband Brett agreed, “It all felt great. I thought we played really well and Jocelyn made a couple of great shots with her last ones.”
They followed this success with a 6-4 over Denmark the same day, and then an 8-6 victory against Sweden on day two.
No matter how their week turns out, Jocelyn and Brett can be sure of support from the home crowd and their families, but — perhaps most importantly — from young Luke.
