For Team Brown, curling has never been just about competition. It has been part of the family for as long as Iona Brown can remember.
Her parents curled before she and her sister Cara were born, and by the time Iona was only four years old, she was already on the ice learning how to throw stones. What began as something fun eventually became something much bigger: a competitive journey built around teamwork, leadership, responsibility, discipline, and the pursuit of constant improvement.
Today, Iona serves as skip for Team Brown, competing alongside teammates who have grown together through years of curling and shared experiences. For Innovator Industrial Services, supporting Team Brown is about more than putting a logo on a uniform. It is about supporting young people who are learning how to lead, make difficult decisions, take responsibility for their actions, work as a team, and give back to the communities that helped them develop.
Those qualities strongly reflect Innovator’s values of Family First, Intentional Culture, and Entrepreneurial Spirit. For Team Brown, those values are lived every time they step onto the ice.
A Sport Built Around Family
Curling has always been woven into the Brown family’s life. Adam Brown and his wife were curlers long before their daughters began competing. When Iona and Cara were very young, they were already spending time around the curling club watching their parents play.
Eventually, watching turned into participating. Iona began curling when she was about four years old, and Cara followed several years later.
What makes curling particularly meaningful for the Brown family is that it is one of the few competitive sports that can genuinely be shared across generations. There have even been opportunities for the family to play together, although, as Adam jokingly recalls, Iona eventually decided her father was no longer quite competitive enough to remain on her team.
As the level of competition increased, the family also recognized that the girls needed coaching beyond what a parent could provide. Experienced coaches joined the program, including coaches with provincial, national, and international experience. That support helped Team Brown continue progressing while giving Iona and her teammates the opportunity to learn from people who had already competed and coached at high levels of the sport.
For Adam, watching that progression has meant far more than watching his daughters improve as curlers. It has meant watching them mature as people.
From Having Fun to Understanding the Game
When Iona first started curling, the appeal was simple. She enjoyed being on the ice, throwing rocks, feeling the texture of the playing surface, and being part of the curling community. But as she grew older, her understanding of the sport changed.
She began to realize that curling was not simply about making shots. It was about strategy, communication, pressure, teamwork, decision-making, and understanding how individual actions affect everyone around you.
That complexity is part of what made her want to continue competing.
“I always loved the challenge,” Iona explained during Innovator’s sponsorship interview. “I love getting better every season.”
There is always something to improve, whether it is delivery, weight control, sweeping, strategy, shot selection, communication, or leadership. That mindset of continuous improvement is one of the strongest connections between Team Brown and Innovator.
Progress rarely comes from doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. It comes from evaluating performance, learning, adjusting, and trying to become better than you were yesterday.
Leadership Means Making the Call
As skip, Iona carries a unique responsibility. She helps determine strategy and makes decisions that can change the outcome of an entire end or an entire game.
Those decisions are rarely simple. Every situation is different. The ice changes, the stones behave differently, opponents adjust, teammates have different strengths, and the score changes what level of risk makes sense. Sometimes, the technically perfect shot on paper is not the smartest shot to attempt in the moment.
For Iona, leadership means learning how to slow everything down mentally when those decisions become difficult. She considers what the ice is doing, what her teammate can execute best, where the opponent’s stone may finish, what alternatives are available, and what happens if the shot does not go exactly as planned. Then she weighs risk against reward.
That process has taught her something much larger than curling strategy.
“Each situation in curling is different, same with life,” she explained.
Whether someone is entering high school, graduating, beginning university, starting a job, or facing an unexpected challenge, the same principle applies: evaluate the situation, determine what matters, consider the options, and then take the next step.
Learning When Not to Take the Big Shot
Some of the best lessons in leadership come from learning when not to take the biggest risk.
Adam still remembers a tournament when Iona was only about nine years old. She wanted to attempt an extremely difficult triple takeout. It was the type of shot Adam had seen elite curler Brad Gushue make, but there was one problem: Adam had not yet seen nine-year-old Iona make it.
He called a timeout and asked her to reconsider the risk versus the reward. Instead of attempting the aggressive triple, Iona changed the call and played the safer option. The decision created a potential four-point swing compared with what could have happened if the original shot failed.
It became an early lesson in something every leader eventually learns: just because something can be attempted does not mean it is the right decision. Leadership requires ambition, but it also requires judgment.
Accountability Is Built Into Every Stone
Curling creates an unusual balance between individual responsibility and teamwork. Every athlete throws their own stone. Nobody else can make the throw for them, and the result belongs to that athlete. At the same time, the player is surrounded by teammates who sweep, communicate, strategize, and respond together.
Adam sees that combination as one of the sport’s greatest lessons.
“You’re the one who’s got to throw the stone,” he explained. “You have to take responsibility for that action.”
That idea closely aligns with one of the qualities Innovator looks for in the youth programs and athletes we support: personal accountability. You prepare, make the decision, execute, and then own the result.
But accountability does not mean operating alone. Team Brown’s success depends on every athlete understanding that her individual performance contributes to something larger. That combination of individual ownership and collective responsibility is one of the most valuable lessons competitive sport can teach.
Trust Turns Four Athletes Into One Team
Team Brown did not come together overnight. The relationships behind the team go back years. Their families knew one another through curling, and some of their parents had previously played together. As the girls progressed through the sport, those relationships evolved into a competitive team.
Eventually, Iona’s younger sister Cara joined the lineup after previously competing on another team. For Adam, that created an entirely different parental challenge when his daughters were once competing against each other. When asked which daughter he cheered for, Iona quickly supplied the answer: “Always me.”
Today, the team has developed the kind of connection that comes from spending countless hours practicing, competing, travelling, and growing together. Iona describes her teammates as being like sisters.
That trust is essential. As skip, she has to believe her teammates can execute the shot. Her teammates have to trust the strategy she calls, and everyone has to communicate honestly enough to adjust when circumstances change.
That is what separates a collection of individuals from a team
Competitive Curling Requires Commitment
The competitive season is demanding. For Team Brown, last season effectively started in August with a Curling Canada camp in Ontario. From there, the schedule accelerated.
Once the ice was available, practices could run three or four nights per week, often for multiple hours at a time. Competition weekends followed regularly, bringing tournaments, travel, training, school, fitness, friends, family commitments, and the constant challenge of trying to balance all of them.
Iona is quick to point out that athletes still need a life outside competition. School matters. Friends matter. Social time matters. Being part of a competitive team does not eliminate the need to remain connected to the rest of life.
That balance becomes another form of discipline. As athletes progress, choices outside competition begin to affect performance inside competition. Nutrition, fitness, rest, preparation, and time management all matter. Those lessons become increasingly important as Team Brown works toward higher levels of competition.
When Sport Becomes a Science
At a high level, curling becomes remarkably technical.
Iona has learned that ice conditions can vary dramatically between clubs because of factors such as humidity, water quality, temperature, pebbling, and the characteristics of individual stones. Her interest in that side of the sport became so strong that she completed a research paper examining how different ice-making variables affect curling conditions.
She worked with a local volunteer to test different approaches to the ice and repeatedly threw stones to examine how those changes affected performance.
It is a small example of a larger quality Innovator values: curiosity. Instead of simply accepting that ice conditions are different, Iona wanted to understand why.
That willingness to investigate, experiment, learn, and apply new information is part of what innovation looks like. It also gives her another advantage as a skip. The more she understands the environment, the better prepared she is to make decisions within it.
The Financial Reality Behind Competitive Sport
Competitive youth sport requires more than effort from the athletes. It also requires significant financial commitment from families.
Adam explained that even one month of ice rental can cost several thousand dollars. Travel to Ontario can cost several thousand more. Then there are tournament weekends, accommodation, transportation, equipment, coaching, training, and the many other expenses that come with competing at a higher level.
That is where sponsorship becomes meaningful.
Innovator’s support helps Team Brown continue pursuing opportunities that would otherwise place even greater financial pressure on the athletes and their families. But for the Browns, the relationship means more than financial assistance. It matters that the company supporting the team shares many of the same values.
“The fact that we’ve got a company like Innovator who has the right values… Family First, taking responsibility for your actions… having Innovator’s backing where the values are very similar is very important to the team,” Adam said.
For Team Brown, Innovator’s logo across their uniforms represents more than sponsorship. It represents alignment.
Giving Back to the Curling Community
One of the strongest indicators of leadership is what someone does with the experience they have gained. Team Brown is already giving that experience back.
Iona has completed her first coaching course and, alongside Cara, helps with junior curling programs and Little Rocks programs for younger athletes. The team also supports events intended to encourage more girls to become involved in curling.
They help organize activities at their home club, talk with younger players, lead warmups, spend time on the ice helping beginners, and simply by being present, give younger athletes something important to see: a next step.
Junior curlers can watch Team Brown and recognize athletes only a few years older than themselves competing at a higher level. That visibility matters in a sport where young athletes may not always clearly see the path from a local junior program into competitive curling.
Team Brown even livestreams its games, and their local curling club sometimes plays those streams for younger curlers. A child participating in a Sunday junior program can watch Iona and her teammates competing somewhere else in the province or at an Atlantic event and understand that they could potentially follow that same path.
Adam believes that impact extends beyond the team itself. Innovator’s sponsorship does not only help four athletes compete. It helps those athletes remain visible within the curling community, and that visibility can encourage another young person to continue. That young person may eventually inspire someone else.
Helping Build the Next Generation
For Iona, being part of the community means more than representing Team Brown at tournaments. It means showing younger athletes what is possible and demonstrating that teenagers can be competitive athletes while also being respectful, engaged members of their clubs and communities.
It means helping younger athletes, representing the sport well, and using their experience to make the path easier for the people coming behind them.
That ripple effect is one of the most valuable outcomes of sponsorship. Support given to one team can create opportunities for far more than the athletes wearing the uniforms. It can strengthen a club, encourage participation, create role models, develop future coaches, and inspire another generation of young athletes to keep going.
Why Innovator Supports Team Brown
Innovator’s youth sponsorship strategy is grounded in a simple belief: the right activities can help young people develop qualities that will serve them throughout their lives.
We look for opportunities that encourage teamwork, discipline, personal accountability, self-improvement, achievement, competitiveness, drive, self-reliance, commitment, adventure, leadership, and innovation.
Team Brown demonstrates those qualities in a very real way. They are learning how to prepare, make decisions, manage risk, take ownership, trust teammates, balance competing priorities, respond when things go wrong, continuously improve, and increasingly, use their experience to help someone else.
That is why this sponsorship matters.
It is not simply about curling. It is about helping young people pursue difficult goals while developing the habits and character needed to succeed well beyond sport.
Pursuing a Bigger Dream
When asked what she would say directly to Innovator, Iona’s answer was simple: “Thank you.”
But what followed captured what the sponsorship truly means. She thanked Innovator for helping her pursue a dream of one day reaching the world stage, for giving her another community behind her, for having people who are excited to follow the journey, and for helping make that path possible.
“I appreciate every single bit of it,” she said.
Adam added that Innovator’s support reaches beyond Iona and Team Brown. By helping the team continue competing, coaching, livestreaming games, appearing at junior events, and staying involved with local programs, the sponsorship can contribute to the future of junior curling throughout New Brunswick.
More young people see the sport. More young athletes see what is possible. And hopefully, more of them decide to keep going.
More Than a Logo
Team Brown proudly carries Innovator’s logo when they compete, but the relationship behind that logo matters far more.
It represents a shared belief in family, responsibility, commitment, growth, teamwork, leadership, and the willingness to pursue ambitious goals.
For Team Brown, the road ahead includes higher levels of competition and bigger aspirations. For Iona, the dream is clear: continue progressing and one day compete on the world stage.
There will be difficult games, long travel days, schoolwork, practices, unexpected ice conditions, tough decisions, missed shots, and plenty of moments when the easiest option would be to slow down. But that is also where character is built: one stone, one decision, one practice, one competition, and one opportunity at a time.
That is the journey Innovator is proud to support.
