Curling As A Kid & Beyond! With Johnson Tao (Richmond, BC)

Send a textTHE "CURLING AS A KID & BEYOND!" SERIES: Episode #6This episode is part of a series where I interview current and former competitive curlers to find out how they grew to love the sport of curling as a young person. In addition, I'll ask some of them what it's like to coach young people. And, in other cases, I'll ask them what it's like having their own children in the sport.Johnson Tao is a silver medallist at the 2022 Canadian U21 Curling Championships. He also curls for the University of Alberta and is one of the winners of the 2021 “For The Love Of Curling” Scholarships given out by Curling Canada. In this interview, we talk about how he attended the Vancouver Olympics at age 7 and how that sparked his interest in curling. We talk about how he coached his own high school team in Richmond, B.C. Then we talk about what it means to be a competitive curler who is also Chinese-Canadian.Some of the topics we discuss:* How watching the curling at Vancouver 2010 led to him joining a junior curling program (3:57)* The first time he visited a curling club (5:28)* What was it about the sport that he enjoyed? (7:56)* His first competitive team (10:44)* Coaching his high school team (13:27)* How he was recruited to the University of Alberta (17:15)* What does a "typical curler" look like? (22:20)* How to get more BIPOC curlers into clubs (24:20)* Johnson's "curling idol" (27:28)* RAPID-FIRE QUESTION SECTION (28:36) including Mother's Day greeting (33:01)* Johnson's new hobby (33:33)* THE BIG QUESTION: How do we get kids to fall in love with the sport of curling and stay with it for the long-term? (34:18)Links to the resources mentioned in this episode:Richmond (B.C.) Curling Club Web sitehttps://richmondcurling.com/University of Alberta Varsity Curlinghttps://bearsandpandas.ca/sports/curlingVancouver Curling Club Web sitehttps://vancurl.com/"Fiesta" by IZ*ONE Music Videohttps://youtu.be/eDEFolvLn0AJohnson's IG: @jtaotaotaoTeam Tao IG & FB: @TeamTaoJohnson's E-mail Address: [email protected] our podcast on Twitter: @kidscurlingGlenn Gabriel is an NCCP-certified curling coach who lives in Pickering, Ontario, Canada. He has been the coordinator of the Little Rocks (U12) program at East York Curling Club in Toronto since 2011. If you have a question or feedback on the podcast, send us an e-mail at [email protected] intro and outro music is "Golden Sunrise (Instrumental Version)"https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Josh_Woodward/The_Wake_1790/JoshWoodward-TheWake-NoVox-10-GoldenSunriseBy Josh Woodwardhttps://freemusicarchive.org/music/Josh_WoodwardLicensed under CC BY 3.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Support the show