Darren Moulding

Darren Moulding (born December 2, 1982) is a Canadian curler from Lacombe, Alberta and curls out of the Saville Sports Centre and the Lacombe Curling Club.

Moulding skipped the Alberta team at both the 2000 and 2003 Canadian Junior Curling Championships.

At the 2000 Juniors, he led his team of Thomas Usselman, Ryan Inaba and Matt Taylor to a 5-7 record, missing the playoffs.

At the 2003 Juniors, he led his rink of Brock Virtue, Taylor and Nicolas Virtue to a silver medal finish.

The team finished the round robin with an 8-4 record, the proceeded to win the tiebreaker match and the semifinal before losing to Saskatchewan (skipped by Steve Laycock) in the final.

After juniors, Moulding formed his own team to play on the World Curling Tour.

He played in his first Grand Slam of Curling event when he was invited to play third for Steve Laycock at the 2006 Masters of Curling, where they failed to qualify for the playoffs.

Moulding found little success skipping on the tour, failing to win a single event before he joined the Steve Petryk rink in 2009.

He played one full season with Petryk, finding little success with him either.

Moulding began skipping his own team again in 2010, but did not play in many events for the next few seasons.

In 2013, Moulding joined the Matthew Blandford rink has his third.

That season, Moulding won his first career tour event, when the rink won the McKee Homes Fall Curling Classic.

The next season, the team played in Moulding's second career Slam event, the 2014 National, where they won two games.

Later in the season, Moulding was invited to play for his former junior teammate Brock Virtue's team at the Black Diamond / High River Cash event, which they won.

For the 2015-16 season, Virtue joined the Blandford rink as skip, moving Moulding to play second.

The team would not win any events.

Virtue left the rink at the end of the season.

Over the 2016 Christmas break, Moulding joined the Brendan Bottcher rink at third following the departure of Pat Simmons from the team.

He is a former Canadian Junior Silver Medallist, a Canadian Mixed Champion, and represented Alberta in the 2017, 2018, 2020 and Team Wild Card in the 2019 Brier Canadian men's championship.

In their first event together, the team made it to the quarterfinals at the 2017 Canadian Open.

In February 2017 Moulding, Bottcher, Brad Thiessen and Karrick Martin won the 2017 Boston Pizza Cup.

After a 3–0 record through the preliminary round, they won both the 1 vs. 2 page playoff game and the championship final, defeating the Ted Appelman rink 6–5 in the final game.

The win earned Team Bottcher the right to represent Alberta at the 2017 Tim Hortons Brier, Moulding's first appearance at the Canadian national men's championship.

There, the team finished with a 3–8 round robin record, however, was able to defeat the defending champions Team Kevin Koe in one of those victories.

They went 1–4 in their final event of the season, the 2017 Players' Championship.

During the 2017–18 season, the Bottcher rink won two tour events, the Medicine Hat Charity Classic and the Red Deer Curling Classic.

They also reached the semifinals of the 2017 GSOC Tour Challenge Tier 2, losing their semifinal game to William Lyburn.

In November 2017, the team competed in the Canadian Olympic Curling Pre-Trials in attempts to qualify for the 2017 Canadian Olympic Curling Trials.

After a slow start, they managed to qualify for the playoffs with a 3–3 record.

They then beat Glenn Howard in one of the semifinal games before losing to the John Morris rink in the first qualification final.

They were, however, able to again defeat Howard in the second final, earning the ninth and final spot at the Olympic Trials.

At the Trials, held December 2 to 10 in Ottawa, Ontario, the team posted a 4–4 round robin record, finishing in fourth place and just out of the playoffs.

In the new year, they reached the quarterfinals of the 2018 Canadian Open where they lost to the eventual champions Team Peter de Cruz.

Team Bottcher posted a perfect 5–0 record en route to defend their title at the 2018 Boston Pizza Cup, earning the right to represent Alberta at the 2018 Tim Hortons Brier.

There, the team finished with an 8–3 record, earning a spot in the 3 vs. 4 page playoff game.

They beat Northern Ontario's Brad Jacobs in the 3 vs. 4 game and then defeated Ontario's John Epping in the semifinal to reach the Brier final.

In the championship game, against Team Canada's Brad Gushue, the team settled for silver after a 6–4 defeat.

They ended their season at the 2018 Players' Championship and the 2018 Humpty's Champions Cup Slams.

After missing the playoffs at the Players', they made the quarterfinals at the Champions Cup.

Team Bottcher had a strong start to the 2018–19 season, winning their second event, the Canad Inns Men's Classic, by defeating Team Kevin Koe in the final.