In the House – Lyburns best bet for Brandon berth

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This article was published 09/12/2010 (5657 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For the last five years, the safe bet in any Brandon Men’s Bonspiel was on Lyburn.

It didn’t matter whether it was Brandon’s Allan Lyburn or his younger brother William, and better still if you got both because that guaranteed a payday.

As the 120th edition of the Brandon berth bonspiel begins tonight, William is the defending champion seeking a repeat of history come Sunday’s 4 p.m. final at the Brandon Curling Club.

“Brandon’s been very good to me in the past,” said William, who now skips a Deer Lodge Curling Club-based lineup in Winnipeg. “Over the past four years, we’ve made three finals and won it twice (as a skip). We have struggled a bit with a new team and haven’t done well on the (money list), but it will take time. We’ve lost a lot of one-point games.”

His lineup of third James Kirkness, second Alex Forrest and lead Greg Melnichuk will attempt to give their skip a fourth bonspiel crown, as William and Allan teamed up to win the 2005 event.

“I’ve been very successful here in the past, but this is a tough bonspiel to win,” William Lyburn said.

Rob Fowler, who skips third Allan Lyburn, joins second Richard Daneault and lead Derek Samagalski in hoping to cash in on Lyburn luck in the Brandon berth event. While a 0-5 run at the Canada Cup in Medicine Hat, Alta., last week gave the squad plenty to ponder after riding a hot streak into the national-level event, there were positives.

“We played four games against four of the top-six teams in the world and were in a position to win three of them,” Fowler said. “The important thing we learned is you can’t lay off the throttle in a 10-end curling game against the best in the world. The results show there were three really big ends scored against us and it was a result of one small mistake.”

However, he’s confident that his first appearance in the Brandon Men’s Bonspiel’s berth draw in at least seven years will be more successful because of the experience.

“As a kid, I couldn’t wait to play in this event,” said Fowler, who has never won the event, although his father Brian Fowler is a past champion.

The champion gets the fifth berth into the Safeway Championship men’s provincials in Beausejour from Feb. 9-13, which is more than enough incentive to draw Westman’s best.

Kelly Robertson of Neepawa, whose team sits in first place the Brandon Sun Westman Super League of Curling, will be joined by Terry McNamee of Brandon, Kelly Marnoch of Carberry, Shawn Taylor of Brandon, Mark Anderson of the Riverview club, Rob Van Kommer of Carberry, Ken Lawn of Hamiota, Curtis McCannell of Pilot Mound, Jerry Chudley of Brookdale and Brendan Taylor of Brandon. Murray Warren of Deloraine and Blair Goethals of Deloraine head the list from the Killarney-based Turtle Mountain Competitive League.

SCOTTIES ZONES — An underwhelming total of three teams will compete for two berths at the combined Zone 3 and 4 Scotties Tournament of Hearts championship in Shoal Lake this weekend. Lisa Blixhavn‘s Brandon club team was seeded first among the three in the double-knockout event and could win a berth to the women’s provincial championship with one win on Saturday. Tina Kozak of Brookdale and Kelsey Russill, representing the Miniota club, will play tonight for the right to face Blixhavn. The losers play off on Saturday for the other berth.

MASTERS OF THE HOUSE — Brandon’s Joyce McDougall of the Brandon club is seeded second overall for the 10-team Manitoba Masters Women’s Open Provincial Championship that begins today in Carman.

JUNIOR BERTHS — Regional playdowns for the provincial junior men’s and women’s berths will take place in Rivers on Saturday and Sunday. Westman will send two representatives to each provincial championship, Jan. 6-10 in Gimli (junior boys) and in Winnipeg (junior girls).