Silver rink hoping for strong showing

For many, a first-ever appearance at a provincial championship would be a daunting task.
But for Chris Silver and the rest of his Fort Frances Curling Club rink, they already are looking forward to the challenge that lies ahead at this week’s Northern Ontario Bantam boys’ playdowns in Longlac.

“We just want try our best and do as well as we can,” reasoned Silver, who is a Grade 8 student at J.W. Walker School here.
“We definitely want to try and get the gold this year, but I know that myself and [second] Jason [Bazylewski] still have a couple of more chances to win it,” he added.
Joining Silver and Bazylewski, who is in Grade 8 at St. Francis School, are Grade 10 Fort High students Reece Jones (third) and Kurt McGuire (lead), who have meshed together quickly with their younger teammates.
“It has been pretty good,” McGuire enthused.
“We win some games and we lose some games, but overall things have been all right,” he noted.
“We’re a bit of an aggressive team, but we’re not super-aggressive compared to some of the other teams,” said Jones, who actually throws skip stones while Silver calls the game.
The Silver rink earned their trip to the provincials a month ago after finishing in second place at the regional Bantam
playdowns in Stratton with a 4-1 record.
“It was a really good weekend,” Silver recalled. “After the first three ends of our very first game, we started clicking together and things worked out really well.
“Our draw game was strong,” he added. “And while we still need to work on our hitting game, it worked out all right.”
Since qualifying for the provincials, head coach Ron Silver has been working with the squad to get them ready for this weekend.
But he hasn’t deviated from what has made them successful.
“We’ve just been working on fine-tuning their skills and strategy,” he explained.
“We just want to keep doing what we are doing, especially when it comes to their style of play.”
The Silver rink will open play tomorrow at 2 p.m. (EST) against Nick Servant (Sault Ste. Marie).
“It’s probably going to be a much more strategic game against those guys there,” McGuire reasoned.
“We will have to play a lot harder than we usually do in order to be successful,” he stressed.
The seven-team round-robin will wrap up Saturday, with the final slated for Sunday at either 9 a.m. or 1 p.m. (depending if any tiebreakers are needed).