Canada's busy curling champs Jocelyn Peterman, Brett Gallant feeling rested at world mixed doubles

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Time hasn’t exactly been on the side of Jocelyn Peterman and Brett Gallant in the 2024-25 curling season.

Curling every week since late December, it seems, has kept Canada’s mixed doubles curling champions extremely busy and often away from each other with team pursuit at the forefront of their schedules.

So any added minutes for Peterman and Gallant together were welcome to give the couple quality time to rest up, renew acquaintances and tune up their game ahead of the 2025 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship — on now through Saturday at Willie O’Ree Place in Fredericton, N.B.

“Feeling rested now … both physically and mentally,” declared Gallant, who, alongside Peterman, proved that by pushing Canada to perfection to open the worlds.

“You know … we practised, Joce and I, for a bit over the last couple of weeks together, which is kind of nice,” continued Gallant. “We don’t always have the chance to practise exclusively together on mixed doubles, because usually we’re kind of practising for our four-person teams, as well.

“So we had a pretty good little stretch there for a couple of weeks.”

Those couple of weeks were key for the married Calgarians for so many reasons.

First and foremost was the rest it offered them, especially for Gallant, since he was on a marathon run of events.

There was the Canadian mixed doubles trials victory in January, giving them the right to represent the nation at these worlds and — pending qualification this week — at the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milano-Cortina, Italy.

To follow was a Grand Slam of Curling final appearance at the WFG Masters.

Then came their separate runs at the Scotties Tournament of Hearts and the Montana’s Brier.

Just ahead of Gallant’s participation with Brier-winning Team Jacobs at the men’s worlds, they curled together in the mixed doubles nationals in Prince Edward Island.

And then Gallant was slated to play with Team Jacobs in the AMJ Players’ Championship, the GSOC season finale, but was given the week off to return home to prepare for these all-important worlds.

“Brett seems to be physically in a really good place,” confirmed Peterman, who was happy to have her hubby home, as well, to resume their everyday lives of family and work life.

“He’s given a lot of credit to our Curling Canada support crew that was with him at the worlds,” continued Peterman. “Yeah … physically, he’s feeling great. And it’s been nice to be able to just practise and spend some time with our son.

“So I think he’s had a good reset and is feeling excited.”

Seemed to be, given a first-day double-up of foes Saturday in Fredericton.

The Canadians topped Germany’s Pia-Lisa Schoell and Joshua Sutor 10-5 and followed with an edge of Denmark’s Jasmin Holtermann and Henrik Holtermann 6-4 to give them a 2-0 start heading into Sunday’s draw with defending champion Sweden, featuring superstars Anna Hasselborg and Oskar Eriksson.

That game went well for the Canucks, as well, for an 8-6 decision, thanks to a three count in the sixth end.

The Swedes (2-1) are like the Canadians (3-0) in that the mixed-doubles discipline comes secondary to team pursuit in their curling lives.

And that’s another reason why it was vital for Peterman and Gallant to have added time together ahead of worlds.

“Yep … it’s important for Joce and I to just kind of feel prepared and know how each other is kind of throwing the rock going into these things and to practise some of the shots together that are a little bit more specific to mixed doubles,” said Gallant, of the lead-up two weeks of on-ice time together. “But we’ve always had the approach that we work hard through the whole curling season to play at a high level, and then when we come together for mixed doubles, we’re hopefully each kind of playing at that level.

“So while it’s an advantage to practise a little bit more mixed doubles, at the same time, we do feel prepared even with our slightly lighter schedule in mixed doubles.”

And they need it, with so many of the 20 teams vying for the world title being focused throughout the season only on mixed doubles action.

“There’s some players that don’t really play a ton of four-person curling that are really excellent at mixed doubles and have a lot of success in mixed doubles competition,” added Gallant. “So there’s kind of a balance there of athletes that really focus on mixed doubles and are playing at a world-class level. And then there’s also a few athletes like ourselves that do play the majority of the time on four-person teams but are equally as talented when they get on mixed doubles ice.

“So it’s a deep field. It’s tough, and it’s going to be a challenge.

“But it’s kind of exciting, because you want to test yourself against the best in the world, and to kind of have this opportunity in front of us is one we don’t take for granted, for sure.”

Extra ends

Through four draws of the world mixed doubles, Canada had company atop Group A action. Italy and Scotland’s Bruce Mouat and Jennifer Dodds were also 2-0, making Peterman and Gallant’s Sunday matinee meeting with Hasselborg and Eriksson a monster one … In Group B, the 2-0 teams after four draws were Australia’s Tahli Gill and Dean Hewitt, Estonia’s Marie Kaldvee and Harri Lill and Norway’s Kristin Skaslien and Magnus Nedregotten … Monday’s games for Peterman and Gallant pits them against Netherlands’ Lisenka Bomas and Wouter Goesgens (9 a.m. ET) and Italy’s Stefania Constantini and Amos Mosaner (5 p.m. ET) … All games are streamed live on Curling Channel.

tsaelhof@postmedia.com

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