BACK IN TIME WITH: Dawson Murschell - Promising top Canadian talent, but soon completely disappeared from the scene

In this column, we regularly go back in time with a particular darter. Today we do so with the Canadian Dawson Murschell. He produced some particularly strong performances at a young age and was therefore predicted to have a great future, although he never quite managed to live up to those high expectations and has currently even disappeared from the scene altogether.

Dawson Murschell was born Nov. 23, 1995, in Medicine Hat, Alberta. In his youth years, he was mostly active within the WDF system. For example, he won the WDF Americas Cup Youth Singles in 2012 and the WDF World Cup Mixed Pairs a year later. A few years later, however, he turned his sights more toward the PDC and in 2017 he made his first appearance there when he participated in the North American Championship. After a win against David Cameron, he eventually had to lose to eventual winner Willard Bruguier.

Later that year, he was invited to participate in the US Darts Masters, a World Series of Darts tournament in which eight top PDC players compete against some local players. Murschell was drawn in the opening round against James Wade. In a riveting duel, he kept up well with Wade, but still had to watch his opponent get no fewer than six match darts. Wade missed them all and Murschell took advantage of this to win 6-5. In the quarterfinals he was unable to pull off another surprise and lost 8-4 to Gerwyn Price.

Murschell was still a regular on the Development Tour later that year, posted some nice results there as well and had gained so much confidence that he decided to take his chance at Q-School in early 2018. For a long time it did not look like he was going to succeed in capturing a PDC Tour Card, but on the final day he still managed to secure his two-year Tour Card.

Because of that, Murschell was allowed to play on the Pro Tour and also decided to settle temporarily in England to avoid having to fly back and forth to Canada for all the tournaments. His first months on the Pro Tour were relatively difficult, though. In 2018, he also participated in the North American Championship again, but this time he stranded in the semifinals. At the US Darts Masters, however, he again provided a shock again, this time Gerwyn Price had to lose 6-2 in the opening round. Once again, however, the quarter-finals were his end station after an 8-5 defeat against Gary Anderson.

Due to his strong performance on the Pro Tour, however, he had now climbed to the second highest Canadian in the world rankings, behind living legend John Part. Murschell thus got to play alongside his idol at the World Cup of Darts. In the opening round they won particularly easily against Italy, but one round later they had to pack up after a 2-0 defeat against Japan.

Due to his strong performance at the US Darts Masters, 'Awesome Dawson' was also allowed to participate in the World Series of Darts Finals in Austria later that year. However, that turned out to be a big disappointment because he had to withdraw from this tournament due to illness.

In 2019, Murschell meanwhile was in the second year of his Tour Card, he was allowed to participate in the World Cup of Darts again. After John Part lost his Tour Card, this time he got Jim Long on his side. In the first round, Canada easily took the measure of Italy just like a year earlier. One round later, however, Murschell and Long faced a seemingly impossible task against strong Australia. Murschell played without nerves and provided a huge shock in the opening game by beating Simon Whitlock 4-3. Canada thus took a 1-0 lead and needed one more win to qualify for the quarterfinals. A little later, Long followed suit by flooring Kyle Anderson also 4-3. Canada thus won the match 2-0 and would face the Netherlands in the quarterfinals.

In that quarterfinal, Murschell once again showed the darts world what he is capable of by beating Michael van Gerwen 4-2 in the opening match. The Canadians were already starting to dream of a semifinal against Ireland, but this time Long could not follow that good example, losing 4-2 to Jermaine Wattimena. Murschell and Long still had an ultimate chance to qualify for the semifinals, however, then they had to win the pairs match against Van Gerwen and Wattimena. In that decisive match, the Dutch eventually showed their class and sent the Canadians home 4-1.

Thanks to his strong performance at the World Cup of Darts, Murschell could start the rest of the year with a lot of confidence. That was also necessary because the Canadian still had a lot of work ahead of him to climb towards the top 64 of the world rankings and thus secure his Tour Card.

However, he ultimately failed to follow up on his strong performance at the World Cup of Darts and lost his Tour Card at the end of 2019. He then announced to return to Canada to finish his studies. He has not participated in Q-School since then and in recent years was limited to tournaments here and there in North America. That he has certainly not lost his talent was demonstrated last year when he managed to win the Klondike Open, a tournament that counts for the WDF world rankings. Murschell is still extremely young, so it is not out of the question that we will see him at work in the PDC in the future.

Canada could use a resurgence of Murschell, by the way. After the departure of Part and Jeff Smith, among others, from the Pro Tour, the North American country currently has only one Tour Card holder in the form of Matt Campbell.

B