Young talent could shine at Viterra this week

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This article was published 08/02/2022 (1518 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SELKIRK — If you were betting on the 2021 edition of the Manitoba men’s curling championship, which gets underway tomorrow at the Selkirk Curling Club, it would be fairly easy to put your money down on either Jason Gunnlaugson or Mike McEwen to capture the title.

After all, the last time a current member of those two rinks wasn’t on the Viterra Championship winning side was in 2010, when Jeff Stoughton, Kevin Park, Brandon’s Rob Fowler and Steve Gould hoisted the trophy in Steinbach.

However, if there was a year where a shake up of the establishment were to occur, it might be 2022.

During the last decade, the Buffalo has been a familiar logo at the top of the leaderboard at the Canadian Junior Curling Championships, with Matt Dunstone and Braden Calvert winning the event from 2013 to 2016.

While Dunstone is now playing out of Saskatchewan, the rest of the key players from those squads will be in Selkirk this week.

Calvert, who is from Carberry, has long-time third Kyle Kurz alongside in addition to lead Rob Gordon, who was on the Dunstone rink in 2016.

Meanwhile, Dunstone’s third Colton Lott is leading his own rink from Winnipeg Beach with Kyle Doering (who was the second on that squad six years ago) at vice.

Lott’s stock has risen ten-fold over the last 12 months. He was sublime in a relief role for Braden Moskowy on the Dunstone squad at the Canadian Curling Trials in Saskatoon in November and was the runner-up at the national mixed doubles championships in Calgary with his fiancée Kadriana Sahaidak.

In fact, there were some people – one of which was my mother – who thought that tandem should have represented Canada at the Beijing Olympics over John Morris and Rachel Homan, which says a lot about their current standing on the national scene.

Although he didn’t win a Canadian junior men’s title, J.T. Ryan was in the mix in 2018 and 2019, only to be derailed by Tyler Tardi’s juggernaut from British Columbia.

He’s skipping his own rink now on the men’s side while his former third Jacques Gauthier – who won the world title in 2020 – is leading the way for a squad that includes Brandonite Brayden Payette at second.

With so many exciting players coming up through the ranks, you have to think one of them could upset the assumed finalists and make things interesting this week.

All you have to do is look at December’s Manitoba Scotties in Carberry to see how some new faces can make things interesting.

Yes, Kerri Einarson and Jennifer Jones weren’t there, but Mackenzie Zacharias, Kristy Watling and Kaitlyn Jones all showed what they could do and were in the playoffs on Sunday, while the pre-event favourite Tracy Fleury was out of the title mix.

Parity makes this sport a ton of fun to watch and that could make this week one to remember if things start to go awry.

Heck, we’ve already had a plot twist with Gunnlaugson taking part in the provincials after saying he was going to back out citing COVID-19 concerns last week. What’s a few more left turns to keep the audience guessing?

• • •

Having been the team to beat in Thunder Bay, Ont. all week, Einarson, Val Sweeting, Shannon Birchard and Brianne Meilleur were the well-deserved winners of the 2022 Scotties Tournament of Hearts on Sunday.

The skip from Gimli is now among the best to have ever competed at the event as she joins Vera Pezer, Coleen Jones and Jennifer Jones in winning a national women’s title on three straight occasions.

Birchard also became part of a historic group this weekend by capturing her fourth Scotties title in as many attempts, which had only been accomplished by Saskatchewan’s Pezer and Lenore Morrison.

While that duo never again appeared at the nationals following their 1973 triumph in Charlottetown, the 27-year-old Winnipeg product – who filed in for Kaitlyn Lawes at third for Jennifer Jones’ championship run in 2018 – can set the record next year in Kamloops.

• • •

As a Northern Ontarian, I was rooting for Krista McCarville’s rink to win it all at home on Sunday, but its week was certainly another great one for one of the most underrated teams in the country.

Although regulations prevented sellout crowds during the tournament, the volunteers, junior curlers, friends and families that were allowed in for the playoffs brought an extra element of excitement to McCarville’s run.

That was especially in true Saturday’s wild 1-vs.-2 Page playoff game against Andrea Crawford of New Brunswick, which had arguably the best atmosphere for a major curling contest in at least a decade.

I’m hopeful that Fort William Gardens will get the chance to properly host the Scotties sooner rather than later, but who knows with how Curling Canada has done things as of late.

• • •

In terms of my predictions for last week, I wasn’t too far off the mark with a podium of Fleury, Einarson and McCarville.

Although Fleury missed most of the event due to COVID-19, the team played really well, with Robyn Njegovan having a strong week at third while her sister-in-law Selena moved up to skip.

As for my other playoff predictions, Zacharias missed out on a spot in the top six after a tiebreaker loss to Kerry Galusha of the Northwest Territories, but Laura Walker and Chelsea Carey ended up being completely out of the mix.

With that said, those picks weren’t as bad as my one for the Olympics mixed doubles final, as Switzerland and Canada were nowhere the near playoffs.

Granted, if you bet on Italy running the table on their way to winning the gold medal Tuesday morning, you probably now own at least three European holiday resorts.

» lpunkari@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @lpunkari