HOG LINE: Long wait worth it for club provincial champions

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This article was published 02/11/2021 (1650 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The last two years have been tough for curlers in the province, especially for those who compete at the club level.

“I think all of us are just excited to be back curling again after COVID-19,” Deb McCreanor said.

“I know we played a couple of games last year, but it really feels like it’s been such a long time since any of us have been back in a club and competing events.”

For many curlers, last weekend’s Club Provincial championship at the Brandon Curling Club marked the first major event since March 2020.

“To be honest, we only played a couple of games back home so we were just coming in here and hoping for the best,” Trevor Loreth said.

As it turned out, the trip was well worth it for Loreth’s rink from the Granite in Winnipeg and McCreanor’s squad from La Salle as they captured the provincial titles and will now represent Manitoba at the Everest Canadian Club Championships in Ottawa from Nov. 28 to Dec.4

For Loreth, who curls with vice Brad Haight, second Ryan Lowdon and lead Brett Cawson, Sunday’s win was the pinnacle of the team’s 16-year run.

“None of us have ever been to a national championship before,” said. “The closest that we came was in the 2019 club provincials, which was our first time there, but we lost in the final to Andrew Wickman.

“I think we learned a lot from the experience that helped us this time around. We realized that we probably could have been more aggressive in that game and we just let it all hang out today.”

While the trip to Ottawa will be a whole new experience for Loreth’s team, it’s something that the McCreanor rink is already used to.

They captured a provincial title in 2017 and reached the quarter-final at the following year’s nationals in Miramichi, N.B.

“Having that experience is huge,” said McCreanor, who is joined on her squad by vice Trisha Hill, second Michelle Buchanan and lead Jennifer Cawson. “There are so many great teams at that event and you are seeing it now at the provincial level.

“We have a lot of curlers here that have competed at the Scotties and at the Viterra, so you need to make sure that you get some practice in before you come to this event.”

McCreanor captured the title over Brandon’s Stacey Fordyce in a 4-3 contest that came right down to the wire. 

“Michelle stuck one of her shots in the back of the four-foot and then we just tried to prevent them from knocking that out,” said McCreanor, who didn’t have to throw her final shot with hammer in the eighth end after Fordyce missed a runback attempt.

“We tried to be a little defensive at the start of the week, but once we got our draw weight figured out, we decided to go for it. That seemed to work for us in the final. Our hitting game wasn’t going so we just tried to put rocks in play.”

The men’s final between Loreth and Andrew Irving of the Fort Rouge wasn’t quite as dramatic.

Loreth broke the game open with a steal of four in the fifth end and clinched the title with a steal of three points in the sixth.

“I think the turning point actually came in the fourth end,” Loreth said. “Brad (who throws fourth stones for the rink) made a really good draw against four, otherwise we could have been in big trouble.

“We also had a little bit of an eye-opener on Friday night when we lost to Cory Anderson (who curls out of the Charleswood). That put us back on our heels a little bit and I think it smarten us up. We made sure that we were going to bed a little earlier after that.”

This year’s national championship, which is the first since 2019, will see the Manitoba champions go up against some familiar names that have played on the national stage.

Ten-time Scotties competitor Shelly Bradley is skipping a rink from Prince Edward Island, while former Brier participants Mark Noseworthy and Philippe Menard will be representing Newfoundland & Labrador and Quebec. 

“We play out of a little club in La Salle so the chance to compete at the nationals and travel to Ottawa is something we’re all looking forward to,” McCreanor said.

“Our plan was to step back from our normal schedule this year as our kids are getting older and playing a little more hockey now,” Loreth added. “That’s definitely going to change now with this trip to the nationals, but we’re going to give it everything that we’ve got.”

EXTRA ENDS: The top under-21 men’s and women’s curlers in Manitoba are at the Heather Curling Club in Winnipeg this weekend as they compete for a spot at this month’s Canadian World Junior Qualifier in Saskatoon. The winners of that event will go on to represent Canada at the World Juniors in Jonokoping, Sweden next March. … The provincial senior playdowns are also taking place at the Pembina Curling Club in Winnipeg this weekend, with the winners advancing to December’s senior nationals in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.