Athlete Bios
Curling
McCormick of Canada to skip for 1st time
Last Updated: Friday, February 5, 2010 | 4:26 PM ET
New York Times for CBC Sports
Debbie McCormick celebrates at the U.S. Curling Olympic trials finals. (Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)One of the most decorated female curlers in the United States, Debbie McCormick will be competing in her third Olympics with her third team at her third position the first as a skip.
A two-time USA Curling female athlete of the year and a seven-time national champion, McCormick was born in Saskatoon, and immigrated to the United States with her family as a toddler. She was dragged into the sport by her parents, who took the kids along when they played in a league at the Madison Curling Club in Wisconsin.
"It was not out of choice," McCormick said. "We had to go down to watch my parents curl. After they were done curling, we were able to go out on the ice and just play around, throw the rocks around, sit on the rocks, push each other, just have fun with it."
McCormick does not hold a grudge; he father, Wally Henry, is her Olympic coach.
McCormick later joined the Madison club's junior program. A trip she took to Scotland with a junior team in 1989 cemented her love of curling. "Competing against other kids my age, being in a different country, having a jersey that said U.S.A. on the back, I just thought that was the coolest thing ever," she said. "And I think that's when I learned I loved to compete. I wanted to continue doing this."
McCormick competed in her first Olympics at the 1998 Nagano Games in Japan, where curling made its debut as a medal sport, and finished fifth with the Lisa Schoeneberg rink out of Madison. McCormick was known as Debbie Henry then; her future husband, Pete McCormick, proposed to her in Nagano.
She returned to the Olympics in 2002 as the vice-skip of the Kari Erickson rink, which placed fourth. Skipping her own team in 2003, McCormick helped the United States win its first women's world championship.
But after finishing a close second to the Cassie Johnson rink at the next Olympic trials, McCormick and vice-skip Allison Pottinger made some changes. With new teammates Nicole Joraanstad and Natalie Nicholson, the revamped McCormick rink won four consecutive national championships, along with the United States team berth for Vancouver. Tracy Sachtjen is the alternate.
For fun, the McCormicks curl in a Wednesday night mixed league at the Pardeeville Curling Club, a two-sheet facility in a small town near their home in Rio, Wis., north of Madison. McCormick and Pottinger won the club's annual Watermelon Bonspiel in 2008, beating Pete McCormick and Joraanstad. When McCormick and Pottinger feel like teasing Joraanstad, they break out their Watermelon championship pins.
"One of Debbie's greatest traits as a skip is that she's completely open to other people providing input," said Pottinger, of Eden Prairie, Minn. "If the team feels very strongly about the shot, she'll listen to it. That's why I don't think I could ever be a good skip. As far as shooting and handling the pressure, Debbie is very calm, and a very calming person."
