Close Ice Breaker, good Tankard time
By David McIver
The Ice-Breaker Spiel finished on Jan. 10 with three finals but no clear champions. Three teams finished the six-team spiel with overall records of three wins and one loss.
On Sheet 4, skip Ashley Ritchie, third Amber Petrushka, second Tawnya Serfas and lead Tyer Ritchie defeated skip Roxan Foursha, third Jasmine Green and second-lead Jolene Bourgoyne 8-4. Absent for the Foursha team for the final was regular lead Nikki Deobald Churchman.
Skip Roxan Foursha looks at the rings as she and second Jolene Bourgoyne brush a rock thrown by third Jasmine Green. They were playing Ashley and Tyler Ritchie, Amber Petrushka and Tawnya Serfas in the Sheet 4 final of the Ice-Breaker Spiel here on Jan. 10. The Ritchie team won 8-4. Photo by David McIver
The Foursha team had gone 3-0 through the round robin, so the Ritchie team, 1-2 in the round robin, pulled off an upset.
A team of former Rosetown high school curlers won the Sheet 3 final by a 5-0 score. Skip Connor Olivier, third Mitchell Hannay, second Taylor Wenzel and lead Lian Wood defeated skip Lyle Slocombe, third Martin Tucker, second Keith Kappel and lead Jason Kidd. Both teams went 2-1 in the round robin.
A veteran local foursome edged 6-5 four young curlers from the Swift Current area on Sheet 2. Skip Kim Evans, third Jo-Anne Stanek, second Dennis Ogenchuk and lead Carly Ironside had a 2-1 record when they faced skip Mady Adamson, third Delany Prentice, second Chloe Peterson and lead Sophie Dick, who had a 1-2 round-robin record. A local connection is the skip’s mother, Lexie (née Russell) Adamson, who grew up in the Zealandia area and went to school here.
Regardless of where they finished, the four former Royals were happy to curl together again. It had been about 10 years since they’d last curled with each other and they plan to do it again, said Hannay. “We’re looking forward to the Rosebowl,” he said.
Two local curlers talked about the competitive part of their seasons, both having played against each other in the Tankard which ran from Jan. 5-11 at the CN rink in Saskatoon.
Cody Sutherland of Rosetown played lead on a new team this season: Team Moser, which includes skip Bradley Moser, third Bryden Tessier and second David Baum. They were curlers he knew. “I curled against them a lot in U-21 (competition),” he said.
They finished 3-5 and tied with three other teams for fourth place at the Tankard.
Carl deConinck Smith of the D’Arcy area skipped a team that also finished 3-5 and was another of those teams tied for fourth. DeConinck Smith won 7-4 over the Moser team, who, like Sutherland himself, is young.
While Sutherland threw lead rocks, he held the broom when Bradley Moser threw skip rocks, “similar to a third in role but throwing first rocks,” said Sutherland.
Team Moser went 2-3 at their first bonspiel on Aug. 26-31: the U-25 NextGen Classic in Edmonton. “We missed playoffs by about a game,” he said.
The team went to a bonspiel in Winnipeg at the end of September and then to four or five spiels on the Saskatchewan Curling Tour in October and November. “They were all lumped closer together this year because of the Olympics and (because) the Brier is a little earlier,” said Sutherland. Team Moser made the semifinals in Winnipeg and at a spiel in Wadena. They didn’t make the playoff round in only one spiel.
Because of that performance, they had enough points to prequalify for the Tankard, one of only six teams to do that.
About that four-way tie for fourth place, tie-breaker games aren’t played anymore, said Sutherland.
Instead, officials went to head-to-head records and because Team Moser had a 1-2 record against the other three teams, Sutherland and company were knocked out, he said.
At the end of April, the team will play in the U-25 NextGen Classic, which has been moved to very late in the season from very early. “Technically, it’s like next season but it’s still within this year,” said Sutherland.
The team might go into other spiels just to be prepared for the NextGen Classic and Sutherland will probably curl in the Rosebowl, he said.
DeConinck Smith has been concentrating on men’s curling this season and going to Saskatchewn Curling Tour spiels with third Ryan Deis of Lloydminster, second Dustin Mikush of Wadena and lead Kalin Deis of Fox Valley. He’s curled with the Deis brothers before.
They won bonspiels in Saskatoon and Wadena and curled in others in Okotoks, Alta., Moose Jaw, Martensville and Swift Current.
Only two teams won Sask. Curling Tour spiels this season, his team and the Regina foursome skipped by Kelly Knapp who won four spiels, he said.
The deConinck Smith team also made semifinals in two spiels and the quarterfinals in two more spiels, he said.
That put them at a ranking of 26th in the Curling Canada Canadian Team Ranking System, said deConinck Smith.
Going back to the Tankard and that four-way tie for fourth, Team Hartung from Langenburg got that fourth spot, although Team deConinck had beaten them 6-5. The tie was broken on the basis of draws done to determine which team got the last rock. Skip Tyler Hartung did the best among the nine teams in those draws. DeConinck Smith placed second, he said, laughing.
While he will stick to more local curling for the rest of the season, he and his rinkmates plan to stay together next season.
It had been eight to 10 years since deConinck Smith had been back to a provincial championship, he figured.
“It was really exciting to be back . . . playing on that good arena ice and just competing with the best. It’s just always fun.”