Colton Goller of Olds, who skipped the Alberta team in the national junior men's championships in B.C. last month is now trying to figure out his curling future.
Goller and two others on the team "age out" (become 21 or older) and therefore can't curl in junior men's competitions next year. They have to curl in the men's category.
Goller, 21, isn't quite sure he wants to do that.
"I'm undecided," he says. "If the offer's right, like if I get asked by a pretty good team, I probably will."
But it's a tough decision.
"It's a lot harder, much harder; a lot more expensive and everything else," he says.
Goller's brother, Kurtis, 19, also of Olds, is the only member of this year's team who will remain in juniors next year.
The Junior Men's Championships were held Jan. 21-28 in Esquimalt, B.C., a suburb of Victoria.
The Goller rink finished seventh overall. They qualified for the championship pool after posting a 4-2 record, but ended up 1-5 in that championship round.
"(In the first round) we beat Newfoundland, Quebec, Northwest Territories and New Brunswick in our pool. We lost to Manitoba and P.E.I," Goller said.
"Then we moved on to the championship pool. We didn't do very well there. It was tough, tough competition, because they're all the best in the country."
All the teams that didn't make the playoffs went into a mixed doubles bracket.
That brought some good news for Goller.
"I actually won silver in mixed doubles, so that was a kind of neat experience that way," he said.
Goller says playing in Nationals was a good learning experience. He says he now knows what it takes to succeed at that level.
"Just more hard work, I guess. There's lots of practice," he says. "I mean, you've got to do all the little things right. We thought we were doing a pretty good job, but compared to the other teams there, they just blow you right out of the water."
"We always gave up a big end which always killed us. If we could have avoided that we would have had a very, very good weekend," Goller says.
That means gambling - going for the steal.
"You have to kind of go all out and when you go all out, you either steal or you give a big end and it always seemed that we gave up a big end instead of stealing," he says.
Goller is happy for teammate Nick Rabl of Lethbridge, the team's lead.
He was asked by the Junior Men's champions, the Tyler Tardi rink of B.C., to be their alternate, so he'll be going to the World Junior Championships, Feb. 16-26 in Gangneung, South Korea.
Rabl curled 87 per cent during the championships and was named to the first all star team. He also won the Ken Watson Sportsmanship Award.
In addition to the Goller brothers and Rabl, other members of the Alberta Junior Men's team this year were third Tyler Lautner of Calgary and coach Jim Lautner of Calgary.
"We always gave up a big end which always killed us. If we could have avoided that we would have had a very, very good weekend."COLTON GOLLER SKIP ALBERTA JUNIOR MEN'S TEAM
