Jane Hobson
jane@pdgmedia.ca
“My mom is my biggest supporter. I feel like everyone says that but it’s true,” says Perth native Hailey Armstrong, whose curling team now holds a silver medal from the 2017 Canadian Junior Women’s Curling Championship. “She does a lot, she’s at almost every event. I know I couldn’t do it without her.”
Armstrong says getting silver was heartbreaking because the team was so close to winning the gold. Her team was 10-0 during the national championship until Team Alberta snagged the gold in the final game.
“Right after the game my mom hugged me and said ‘You amaze me, follow your dreams,” she says.
“Right after the game my mom hugged me and said ‘You amaze me, follow your dreams,” she says.
Armstrong started curling in Carleton Place when she was nine years old. “A couple of my friends were going curling after school one day and I was like, ‘What’s that? Can I try it?’ I just absolutely loved it. I loved it instantly,” she recalls.
A year later she joined the Perth Curling Club and soon learned to skip.
The skip is the captain of a curling team. A team is comprised of four players: the lead, third, vice-skip and the skip. The skip determines the game strategy and indicates where a teammate at the other end of the playing area should aim the stone.
“I started to get more competitive and realized, hey, I’m actually kind of good at this,” Armstrong says.
Now 20-years-old and living in Innisville, this is Armstrong’s last season playing on a team with vice-skip Grace Holyoke, second Lindsay Dubue, lead Marcia Richardson and coach Bill Rogers. “We are team Ontario so that feels pretty amazing. What a great way to end my time in the juniors,” she says.
Next season Armstrong will play in the women’s division and she has a long-term goal of competing at the 2026 Olympic games.
Armstrong says she’s ecstatic about where she is in her curling career right now and knows the silver medal will feel better in time. “I don’t take things for granted. I’ve seen my mom work hard her whole life. She raised me alone,” Armstrong says. “Anyone with goals, or who wants to follow their dreams, believe in yourself and do it. That’s what my mom has always taught me.”
Catch the rest of Hailey Armstrong’s story in the March issue of Hometown News.
