The Yukon’s Northwestel Chilkoot Sweepers captured gold at the inaugural Northwestel Curling Invitational for Special Olympics in the Yukon recently.

The Invitational took place Nov. 25-26 at the Whitehorse Curling Club.

The Chilkoot Sweepers were skip Gaetan “Gaetes” Michaud, Carrie Rudolph, Edward Kaye, and Brandle Bruneau.

The Sweepers took on Lethbridge in the gold medal game Nov. 26.

They got off to a good start, scoring one in the first end. They followed that up with another score in the second end.

Lethbridge answered back with one of their own in the third end.

However, the Sweepers bounced back with two more in the fourth to make it 4-1.

They took a commanding 6-1 lead after five ends.

Lethbridge rounded out the scoring with a single in the sixth end to make the final score 6-2 for the Yukon team.

There were numerous excellent shots in the gold medal game.

Bruneau was sweeping up a storm for the Sweepers. The Star spoke with his family, who were part of the on-ice audience for the event.

“It’s great. He loves this kind of stuff. He’s into power lifting, too,” said Brandle’s father, Chris Bruneau.

His wife Kris said Brandle is into golf as well.

According to the Bruneaus, Brandle is in his second season of curling.

Kris said it was “pretty cool” that Brandle was playing in the finals.

“They took third place last year down in Kamloops out of 15 teams,” said Chris.

Brandle’s brother Logan and his future sister-in-law, Chelsea Benoit, were also there cheering him on.

The Star spoke with Rudolph after the victory.

“I thought it was a wonderful game,” she said. “The whole tournament turned out really well. We won one, tied one, lost one yesterday, and then we did really good today.”

Rudolph said the semi-final game went really well, as did the final.

“I was just doing rock by rock and just having some fun and trying to get the team to realize it’s just for fun and not worry about scoring and just have some fun.”

Rudolph was asked the key to their victory.

“Working together as a team and helping each other out, even helping the other teams out as well,” she replied.

Rudolph agreed that there seemed to be a lot of camaraderie and sportspersonship among the teams.

As for what’s next, Rudolph said, “More practices and getting ready for Calgary at the end of February.”

The Special Olympics Canada Winter Games take place Feb. 27-March 2, 2024.

An emotional Rudolph also thanked Special Olympics Yukon and the Whitehorse Curling Club for the opportunity to curl in the tournament.

“We’re very thankful that we could get this opportunity to be part of the group.”

Yukon head coach Deb Sumner said, “I think they did incredibly well. We’ve been practising a lot and they really formed a good camaraderie with the team, building each of them up.

“Some good shots and bad shots, but you know, on their own out there because we’re not coaching them. We have two 90-second timeouts if they need it, but other than that, they’re calling the shots and they proved it well today.

“It’s really nice to have Lunenburg, Terrace and Lethbridge join us,” Sumner said.

Lunenburg, N.S. Queen Rockers and Terrace, B.C. Spirit Bears battled for the bronze, with Lunenburg coming out on top 5-3.

“This is out first invitational,” related Sumner. “I hope there’s more to come.

“The fans were amazing. We play Thursday nights at the club, so we’ve even had some of those people out watching us.”

She said the key to the Yukon victory was “making shots. They were making their shots, they were staying positive, and just taking their time. I think it helped too, to have the fans out. And being able to play against Special Olympic athletes. It’s perfect.”

Sumner added a thank you to the Mount Mac curling rink.

“They’ve really helped us feel welcome and that’s why we’ve been able to improve, because we play in a Thursday night league, besides playing on Special Olympics.”

Special Olympics CEO Serge Michaud said he thought the overall tournament went great, given it’s the first time that they hosted a national curling invitational.

“It was done to change it up,” related Michaud. “’Let’s go to a different sport,’ so we decided to do curling, and it’s also timely in that our Chilkoot sweepers will be representing the Yukon at the Canada Winter Games to be held in Calgary this coming February.

“This is our first competition of the season; to walk away with a gold medal, I don’t think you can get better than that. I think they’re pretty much ready to go if we were to say, ‘We’re leaving tomorrow,’” he joked.

Michaud agreed that the Sweepers represented Yukon very well.

“They started out a little slow with a loss, and a tie, and then they just found their groove in the third game in the round robin yesterday and never looked back.

“I can’t say that there was one player in particular that impressed me. I would say all four of them equally contributed to this victory. I’m sure they would tell you the same thing.

“It was a lot of fun.”

Michaud thanked Northwestel “for all the support they’ve given Special Olympics Yukon for the last couple decades, specifically with this curling bonspiel for the first time, and the governments of Canada and the Yukon. We can’t do stuff like this without the support of our government. It’s great to have great partners that believe in our athletes’ abilities.”