(by Danny Lamoureux) The Northern Ontario women did it last night and now the Northern Ontario men did it this morning. That is winning their traditional rivalry game against Ontario at this year’s 2014 M&M Meat Shops Canadian Junior Curling Championships in Liverpool, NS.
Fifteen-year-old Tanner Horgan of the Idylwylde Golf & Country Club in Sudbury stole four points in the second end against previously unbeaten Ontario’s Ryan McCrady in Draw 7 action. From there the young skip allowed little in the way of offence for McCrady. Despite a steal of one in the ninth end to make it a two-point game, Horgan made a nice double takeout to seal the win in the 10th end. Ontario is now 4-1 and Horgan improves to 3-1, each chasing Manitoba’s Braden Calvert, who had the morning bye, sitting at 4-0.
Nova Scotia’s favourite son this week, Robert Mayhew of Windsor, continues to roll after an opening round defeat, posting his fourth consecutive win. Mayhew edged Joe Wallingham of the Yukon 5-3, who drop to 1-3.
New Brunwick’s Rene Comeau continues to lead the pack in Men’s Pool B, scoring six points in the first end against NWT’s Matthew Miller. The game ended after eight ends 11-5 for New Brunswick. Their record is 4-0 while Miller is at 1-4.
Quebec’s Adam Freilich squared off with Newfoundland & Labrador’s Stephen Trickett. In a see-saw battle, Trickett chased the entire game trying to even the score. A couple of nice deuces later in the game set him up for a game-tying two points in the last end, but Trickett rolled out and Quebec won their first match of the tournament. Both teams are now 1-3.
Saskatchewan’s Tyler Hartung evened his record at 2-2 in defeating Jamie Airut of Nunavut 13-2. Airut remains winless at 0-5.
In the final men’s game of the morning draw, B.C. switched positions at the back end, with Cameron de Jong relinquishing the skip position and moving to vice after three straight losses as skip. Brook Calibaba stepped in and guided the B.C. foursome to a 9-4 win over Kyle Holland of P.E.I. Both teams are 1-3.
All men’s teams with four wins are assured of moving to the championship round, while teams with three losses will make at least a tie-breaker game if required.
In the only two games in the women’s section this morning, Jessica Daigle and her Fredericton, N.B., rink defeated Veronica Smith 6-5 in the tournament’s first extra end. After two straight defeats to open the championship, the New Brunswick skip has now won two straight. P.E.I. drops to 2-3.
Finally, Ontario’s Molly Greenwood survived a scare, trailing 4-3 against winless Sarah Hill of Newfoundland & Labrador with two ends to go. Ontario squeaked ahead with a deuce in the ninth and then stole another pair in the 10th to win 7-4. Ontario is on top of Women’s Pool B at 4-1 while Hill is winless.
Round-robin games are taking place at both Queens Place Emera Centre and the Liverpool Curling Club in the beautiful South Shore region of Nova Scotia.
The teams have been seeded (based on last year’s results) into two seven-team pools for each gender and will first play a six-game round robin within each pool from Saturday through Tuesday. The top three teams in each pool, plus two teams with the next best won-lost records, then advance to the Championship Round for a further four-game partial round robin from Wednesday through Friday, with their earlier records carried forward.
Once the top three teams for each gender have been determined, all playoff games will be played at Queens Place Emera Centre. The women’s final is Saturday, Jan. 25, while the men’s final is Sunday, Jan. 26. Both finals will be televised live on TSN/RDS2 at 4 p.m. AST/3 p.m. EST.
For the second consecutive year, the competition format involves all 14 Member Associations of the Canadian Curling Association (10 provinces, plus Northern Ontario, Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon).
The full scoreboard can be viewed at http://www.curling.ca/scoreboard
The leaderboard can be viewed at http://www.curling.ca/2014juniors-en/standings/