Canada’s Vivier and Codner bounce back with a win at Booster Juice World Junior Mixed Doubles

With a Canadian U-18 curling gold medal on his resume, Nick Codner started looking around this spring for a teammate to see if he could find similar success in mixed doubles. When he realized he wouldn’t find her in Newfoundland & Labrador, he extended his search westward.

That’s when he recalled meeting Dominique Vivier, a talented female curler from Ontario at the 2024 Canadian U-18 Championships in Ottawa. The wheels were set in motion. Now, the pair are wearing Canadian colours at the inaugural Booster Juice World Junior Mixed Doubles Championship at the Saville Community Sports Centre in Edmonton.

Codner (Torbay, N.L.), Vivier (Navan, Ont.) and coach Laura Walker of Edmonton bounced back nicely from an opening-day loss to South Korea to score an impressive 10-3 win over Team Romania’s Ania Bacali and Tudor Pop Wednesday afternoon.

“We came out with intensity, with vengeance, did a little better job today,” Codner said of the duo’s success.

He made a delicate tap back followed by Vivier’s perfect draw around guards to the button to give Team Canada a four-point first end. They followed with steals of two in the second and one in the third for a 7-0 margin.

“We had a better handle on our draws, so we were able to be accurate on angles,” added Vivier. “The first end was very big for confidence. It’s always nice to get ahead early and know you have draw weight.”

After giving up a deuce in the fourth, Vivier made a pressure draw for a single in the fifth to prevent Romania from building any momentum off their initial scoring end.

Vivier’s ability to make pressure draws as well as throw heavier weight shots was one of the things that intrigued Codner. Vivier skipped Ontario 1 at the event and led her team to the quarterfinals.

“I was preferably looking for a skip, someone who can make all the shots and she can make the tight draws and also throw it really hard,” he explained. “Being able to leave her a weight shot at the end to get a couple of points is big for us. She has that in her pocket.

“The number one reason I reached out to Dominique is I wanted someone good. There was no one available on the island. I didn’t get to see her play a whole lot, but her (four-person) team was successful so it was a pretty easy decision.”

For Vivier, it was also an easy decision to accept Codner’s invitation.

“I was quite surprised, but I was also excited,” she said. “I had seen his team do quite well at nationals, they won the whole thing. I knew to play mixed doubles you want the guy to be really good at hitting because there’s lots of runbacks.

“We’re both good sweepers. Plus, I saw his personality on the ice and that’s super important in mixed doubles, so I was excited to play with him.”

Chemistry is always critical in team sports and the pair found they meshed relatively quickly on the ice.

“You’re a little bit forced to make it work,” Vivier said of the team chemistry. “I think because both our (four-person) teams were at the same level competitively I think it was easy to jell that quickly. Our personalities matched well, we’re both competitive and intense and like to have a little laughs in there, so it works out well.”

Wednesday’s win improved Team Canada to 1-1. Its next game is 6 p.m. (all times MT) Thursday against Turkey’s Burcu Hasil and Muhammed Taha Zenit.

The world championship is an open event with 29 teams competing, split into four groups to play five days of round-robin competition. The top two teams in each division advance to the quarterfinals Saturday at 6 p.m.

Canada is in a pool with teams from South Korea, Switzerland, Ukraine, Poland, Turkey, England and Romania. After five sessions, Team Switzerland is 2-0, Team England 2-1, Team South Korea is 1-0, Team Canada and Team Ukraine are at 1-1, Team Romania and Team Turkey 0-2.

The semifinals go Sunday at 10 a.m. followed by the bronze-medal and gold-medal games at 3 p.m.

Select games are available to stream through Curling Stadium.

For the latest scores, draw and list of teams, CLICK HERE.