Laurier student tries to diversify face of curling

“It wasn’t something I really took note of when I was younger, but then as I got older and started watching more curling on TV, it became more apparent that there weren’t many individuals who looked like me,” said the 19-year-old.

“I’ve become interested in what I can do, from my position as a student-athlete, as a Black athlete, as a role model for young curlers and someone growing up trying to forge a long-term pathway in sports and this sport in particular, what I can do to both share my experiences and collaborate with others to make the game more welcoming.”

Mulima travelled to Sudbury on Tuesday as part of the Wilfrid Laurier team that will participate in the U Sports championship at Gerry McCrory Countryside Sports Complex. The Golden Hawks squad of Sam Mooibroek (skip), Mulima (vice), Wyatt Small (second), Ben Pearce (lead) and Codie Harris (alternate) recently won the Ontario University Athletics championship and is one of the teams to watch at the Sudbury event that starts Wednesday and concludes Sunday.

Mulima will be the only Black curler at the U Sports championship, a reality that he is bringing attention to by participating in initiatives that tackle the sport’s diversity.

Last year, he was involved in a Curling Canada promotional video, Curling Is for Everyone, that spread the message of inclusivity. This year, he is active in the Rocks & Rings program that introduces curling to children in their elementary school gymnasiums with iceless equipment and virtual resources.

He has instructed juniors in both Kingston and Waterloo and relishes the opportunity to help others develop a love for the sport that he first became interested in while watching the 2014 Sochi Olympics.

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• Dec 31, 1969
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• Dec 31, 1969
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Mulima is also active online and maintains Instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts, and was recently featured in a video by Laurier’s athletics department.

“I had role models that put time into me, and that’s part of the reason why it’s so important to me that I give back and pay forward the time that mentors and coaches have invested in me,” said Mulima.

Making the sports more inclusive, he adds, is the responsibility of all curlers.

“It’s about ‘How do we create this atmosphere and how do we make this sport more welcoming?’ because everyone has a role to play,” he said.

“It’s about educating ourselves more about what we can do about diversity, about the impacts of racism and microaggressions and stuff like that. Everyone has a role to play because the curling community is made up of everybody that steps foot in a curling club.”

The U Sports championship is the penultimate event of a hectic stretch for Mulima that started in Peterborough with the OUA championships in early February. Laurier defeated Queen’s in the gold-medal game for the school’s third straight title since 2020.

He then competed from Feb. 28 to March 3 at the Canada Games in Prince Edward Island and most recently played at last week’s Ontario junior men’s championship in Ottawa. Mulima paired with University of Guelph student Tori Zemmelink of Palmerston to win silver in the mixed doubles event in Montague, PEI, and served as vice for the Guelph Curling Club team skipped by Dylan Niepage that finished third Sunday at the U21 junior championship.

His remaining event of the 2023 campaign is another mixed doubles event with Zemmelink in early April that could lead to an additional tournament in Sweden.

The U Sports championship was last played in 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic, and won by Wilfrid Laurier.