More changes for wheelchair curling in the USA

Jim Pierce has also announced retirement from Team USA after the disappointments at the 2011 World Championships in Prague. telling his teammates he is giving up the sport.

Jim Pierce 2011

Jim was a founding member of the USA wheelchair curling team, playing in 66 games including five Worlds and two Paralympics, and finishing with a 2008 Worlds bronze medal and a 31-35 record.

Patrick McDonald, who missed almost all of last season with a shoulder injury, aims to step up and take more responsibility next season, assuming he regains competitive fitness.

"The shoulder is coming along ahead of schedule. I'm feeling really happy about having a complete shoulder replacement. From what the doctor's told me after my MRI it was most likely broken in Vancouver at the Paralympics," he told me.

"I'm moving my family to Madison, WI. so I can curl full time and work with the coaching staff. I will also be helping find new athlete's to make the sport grow here in the States."

Perhaps he will be able to infleunce the wheelchair users curling out of Duluth MN who have so far stubbornly resisted approaches from Team USA coaches because they want the WCF rules of play rewritten to allow them to deliver while their chairs are moving forward. 

 

Communication key to USA success, says coach Brown

Jim Pierce - Team USA vice-Skip
(photo - Sitrin)

Team USA coach Steve Brown told Universal Sports reporter Josh George that involving all the team members in the game will help skip Augusto 'Goose' Perez and improve the team.

“When you can get four people, four sets of eyes (assessing the situation), you’ll be a lot stronger than one,” Brown said during a phone interview.

"Goose knows the strategy comparable to the top teams, but he is still going to make mistakes sometimes,” said Brown. “But if you have that extra set of eyes, instead of making a call that is almost guaranteed to backfire, you have someone making you take that second look.”

Vice-skip Jim Pierce commented after the US Open, "We did gain some ground in communication, which is a huge thing....Everybody has to stay in the game, you can’t just shoot your two shots and be done.”

Read what you will between the lines here, but having met the team and seen them play, I know Goose is a forceful personality who relishes the big occasion and the opportunity to make the spectacular shot. If he is able to draw on the insights of the quieter members of his team, the game calling may become less adventurous, but USA's medal prospects may improve.