John Epping

John Allan Epping[2] (born March 20, 1983) is a Canadian curler from Toronto, Ontario.

John Epping
Curler
Epping at the 2018 Elite 10 Grand Slam curling event in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Born	John Epping (1983-03-20) March 20, 1983 Peterborough, Ontario
Team
Curling club	Leaside CC,[1] East York, Toronto, ON
Skip	John Epping
Third	Ryan Fry
Second	Mat Camm
Lead	Brent Laing
Alternate	John Morris
Career
Member Association	Ontario
Brier appearances	2 (2018, 2020)
Top CTRS ranking	2nd (2019-20)
Grand Slam victories	4 (2008 National, 2012 Players', 2015 Canadian Open, 2018 Masters)
Medal record Men's Curling Representing  Ontario Tim Hortons Brier 2018 Regina

Curling career

Born in Peterborough, Ontario, Epping was a top junior curler, having won the Ontario Junior championship in 2004. At the 2004 Canadian Junior Curling Championships, his team finished with an 8-4 record, just out of the playoffs. He won the 2006 Canadian Mixed Curling Championship with Julie Reddick, Scott Foster and Leigh Armstrong. He won the 2007 provincial mixed as well, but could not defend his national title.

After Juniors, Epping played third for Nick Rizzo until switching positions with Rizzo in 2006, and thus skipping the team. However, in 2007 he was picked up to play third for Olympic silver medalist Mike Harris. He'd only play one season for Harris before joining Wayne Middaugh's rink at second in 2008. With the Middaugh rink Epping won the 2008 National, his first Grand Slam victory. The team also played in the 2009 Canadian Olympic Curling Trials, where they finished with a 2-5 record. In 2010, Epping parted from Middaugh to form his own team.

Epping and teammates Scott Bailey, Scott Howard and David Mathers won the 2012 Players' Championship, Epping's second Grand Slam title of his career, and his first as skip. This win helped him accrue enough CTRS points to qualify for a direct spot at the 2013 Canadian Olympic Curling Trials. At the Trials, his rink (which replaced Howard with Collin Mitchell) won just one game, and finished last. Following the season, Epping formed a new team with Travis Fanset, Pat Janssen and Tim March. Mat Camm replaced Fanset in 2015.

At the 2015 Ontario Tankard, Epping's team recorded an 8-2 record through the round robin, but lost to Mark Kean in the final. At the 2016 Ontario Tankard, Epping and his rink again finished the round robin with an 8-2 record, but lost again in the final, this time to Glenn Howard.

Epping played in the 2017 Canadian Olympic Curling Trials, but again had a disappointing tournament, finishing with just a 2-6 record. He also competed in the 2018 Canadian Mixed Doubles Curling Olympic Trials with Sherry Middaugh, who replaced his usual mixed doubles partner Lisa Weagle, who had qualified in the team event with Rachel Homan. Epping and Middaugh finished the round robin with a 3-5 record and did not make it to the round of 8. Later in the season Epping would win his first ever provincial championship, finally defeating Glenn Howard in the final of the 2018 Ontario Tankard. Thus, the 2018 Tim Hortons Brier would be Epping's first Brier appearance. There, he led Team Ontario to a 9-2 record after pool play, good enough for second place going into the playoffs. However, they would lose both of their playoff games, settling for third place overall. After the season, the Epping team replaced its front-end with veteran curlers Brent Laing and Craig Savill.[3]

Team Epping won the 2018 Masters, his fourth grand slam title, completing a career Grand Slam for Epping by winning all four "majors". Thanks to their success during the 2018-19 season, they qualified for the 2019 Tim Hortons Brier Wild Card game, despite losing in the final of the 2019 Ontario Tankard. In the Wild Card game, they lost to the Brendan Bottcher rink 8-4, missing out on playing in the Brier.[4]

Epping added third Ryan Fry to the lineup for the 2019-20 season, with Laing and Camm switching positions and Savill losing his spot. In their first event of the season, the team won the Stu Sells Oakville Tankard. The following week, they would win their second event, the 2019 AMJ Campbell Shorty Jenkins Classic.[5] They had a semifinal finish at the Masters, the first Grand Slam of the season. They missed the playoffs at the next two slams, the Tour Challenge and the National after going 1–3 at both. Team Epping posted a 6–2 record en route to winning the 2019 Canada Cup in Leduc, Alberta. This win qualified them to represent Team Canada along with five other Canadian teams at the 2020 Continental Cup where they lost 22.5–37.5 to the Europeans. They had a strong showing at the Canadian Open where they made it all the way to the final. At the 2020 Ontario Tankard, they completed their undefeated run throughout the week with an 8–3 win over Glenn Howard. Representing Ontario at the 2020 Tim Hortons Brier, they finished the championship pool with a 7–4 record and in a four way tie for fourth place. They defeated Team Wild Card (Mike McEwen) in the first tiebreaker before losing to Northern Ontario (Brad Jacobs) in the second and being eliminated from contention.

Personal life

Epping is a graduate of Trent University. Epping is employed as a curling consultant with "Epping Consulting." Epping is openly gay and married Thomas Shipton in June 2017.[6][7]

Grand Slam record

Key
C	Champion
F	Lost in Final
SF	Lost in Semifinal
QF	Lost in Quarterfinals
R16	Lost in the round of 16
Q	Did not advance to playoffs
T2	Played in Tier 2 event
DNP	Did not participate in event
N/A	Not a Grand Slam event that season

Event	2006–07	2007–08	2008–09	2009–10	2010–11	2011–12	2012–13	2013–14	2014–15	2015–16	2016–17	2017–18	2018–19	2019-20
Elite 10	N/A								Q	QF	Q	QF	SF	N/A
Masters / World Cup	DNP	Q	Q	DNP	DNP	F	Q	Q	SF	Q	QF	Q	C	SF
Tour Challenge	N/A									Q	Q	QF	Q	Q
National	Q	QF	C	QF	Q	DNP	Q	DNP	Q	SF	QF	SF	Q	Q
Canadian Open	DNP	DNP	Q	SF	Q	Q	Q	QF	Q	C	Q	Q	F	F
Players'	DNP	QF	Q	DNP	Q	C	QF	QF	SF	Q	Q	QF	Q	N/A
Champions Cup	N/A									F	SF	DNP	QF	N/A

References

1. http://www.curling.ca/scoreboard/#!/competitions/2373/teams/12361/team_athletes/12361-lead-1512
2. https://twitter.com/TeamJohnEpping/status/1168480053178638338
3. http://www.thegrandslamofcurling.com/curling/epping-announces-new-team-adding-laing-savill/
4. https://globalnews.ca/news/5015158/bottcher-brier-2019-curling-wild-card/
5. Strong, Gregory (16 September 2019). "New-look Team Epping already finding rhythm on the ice". CBC Sports. The Canadian Press. Retrieved 17 September 2019.
6. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2017-08-05. Retrieved 2017-01-30.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
7. 2017 Canadian Olympic Curling Trials Media Guide

External links

• John Epping on the World Curling Tour database
• John Epping on the CurlingZone database