Dan Falloon
It took a minor upset for the Raymond Roy rink to punch a ticket to the club provincial playdowns, but it wasn’t a match the locals had a hand in.
Roy and his rink of Dave Broman, Butch Wensley, and Patrick Briere already were sitting with a 4-1 round-robin record Sunday morning as John Cummine (Sioux Lookout), then at 3-1, got set to face 1-3 Greg Shields (Kenora).
Shields came out blazing, however, and held on for a 6-4 win to hand the Region 1 berth to Roy.
The provincial showdown is slated April 8-11 at the Port Arthur Curling Club in Thunder Bay.
“We just stayed at our hotel late, then went to the rink, and by then the Kenora team was up by quite a bit,” Roy recalled.
“We thanked the Kenora team.
“They knew that they had nothing to play for, other than for us, and they went out and won the game,” he added.
Roy said there would have been a tiebreaker had Cummine completed the comeback, but was just as pleased not to be forced to take any chances.
“I’m sure we would have done fine against them [Cummine], but you never know,” Roy said of the team that handed him his only loss during the round-robin.
“It was better not to play the [tiebreaker].”
Roy opened the scoring in each game, including twice recording a triple in the first end.
That early boost put the locals in position to dictate the match from there.
“What we did well is we started off every game scoring early, so we had control of every game right off the bat,” Roy explained.
“We just played a little bit defensive, and got a few breaks.
“We controlled every game, really.”
All but one of the provincial berths are now determined. Roy said while some opponents are familiar, he’s going in blind against some of the other ones.
“Some of them I know, some them I don’t,” he remarked. “The guys that are there that I know, we’ve curled against them before and they’re definitely all good curlers.
“It’ll be a test,” he stressed.
Roy doesn’t have any tricks up his sleeve when it comes to the provincials, but plans to keep in game shape with a slate of matches at the club here.
“We’re just playing in our club playdowns now, so hopefully we’ll get a few games in, some good intense games,” he said.
“That’ll keep us mentally tough. I don’t know about physically, but mentally tough.”
Roy opened play in Sioux Lookout with a 6-1 victory over Atikokan’s Arlo Jewell, then beat Shields (Kenora) 7-4 on Friday evening.
The locals improved to 3-0 on Saturday morning with a 10-2 romp over Bryan Bonot (Stratton), but then blew a 6-2 lead to Cummine that afternoon to suffer their lone loss by a 7-6 count.
Roy rebounded in their final game, knocking off Randy Baird (Keewatin) by an 8-2 score.
