By JAMIE SHANKS, of the Weyburn Review
How do you get Canadian curling fans to cheer for the U.S. team in the gold medal game at the 1999 Women's World Curling Championship?
It's easy when their skip is Patti Lank, a native of Midale and a former Weyburn resident.
"It was really funny," Lank said from her Lewiston, New York home yesterday after returning from the week-long tournament held in Saint John, New Brunswick.
"As soon as Canada was out, they kind of took us as their own."
Lank - the daughter of Weyburn's Tink and Rita Pyett - posted a 7-3 record in the round robin before beating Norway in the semifinal and losing 8-5 to Sweden's Elisabet Gustafson in Saturday's world final.
It was, in fact, the second appearance in American colours at the world championships for Lank, who competed in Switzerland in 1997 and has been involved with the U.S. program for the past four years.
Since immigrating south of the border six years ago with her husband, an Air Canada pilot, she has grown to love her adopted country. With the nearest American curling club located an hour and a half away in Rochester, however, Lank ironically spends much of the season curling on Canadian ice as a spare in a ladies' league just 15 minutes away in Niagara Falls, Ont. instead.
"Usually I don't even skip, I just play front end," Lank said, adding that she and her Team USA comrades - Erika Brown, Allison Darragh and Tracy Sachtjen - live in different states and normally only play together in tournaments.
But that doesn't mean they aren't contenders among the best in the world.
"This time we went in gunning for the gold right from the start," Lank said. "We knew we had a great team."
As a teenager Lank curled on the Weyburn Comprehensive School's girls team for three years. She got her start even earlier in Midale when she was in Grade 7 and dreamed of competing one day in the provincial Tournament of Hearts.
"I always loved the game. My parents played I used to watch them and finally my mom let me play. I begged and begged forever."
To her delight, many of her friends and family members from the area were out in force at Saint John to provide support.
"I know how many Weyburnites were out there cheering," she said. "I was getting e-mails from people I haven't heard from since grade school."
Lank's Canadian roots were no secret during last week's world championship, according to her sister-in-law Sherry Pyett.
"They put a lot of emphasis on it down there that she was a Saskatchewan girl," Pyett said. "She got a lot of publicity because this is the first year they've curled together."
The team is banking on further success and have their sights set on the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. For now, Lank will be making the media rounds in coming weeks to capitalize on their recent performance and promote women's curling in the U.S., a country that pales somewhat beside Canada in its attentiveness to the game.
Lank's brother Perry, who still lives in Weyburn, isn't surprised at her accomplishments so far.
"She always said 'I'm going to win the Worlds' and her big goal is the Olympics," he said.
"My opinion is they're not finished yet it's just the beginning for them."
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