Lucas Punkari
It wasn’t the result his rink was hoping for, but the Dominion Club Curling provincial playdowns in Sault Ste. Marie last week was something Stratton’s Maury Nielson certainly will remember for years to come.
“It was an excellent experience,” said Nielson, who arrived back home Monday night.
“To have my 18-year-old son [Tyler] playing lead with me and to have him get a chance to see the whole provincial experience, and to be piped out on the ice in the opening ceremony, it was great to see that for him and for the other guys on the team,” Nielson added.
Joined by third Neil Haw and second Andrew McCormack, the Stratton rink wrapped up round-robin play with a 1-4 mark to finish tied for fifth in the six-team field with Jonah Dupuis (Nipigon).
“I don’t know if it was maybe the fact that we weren’t playing quite as sharp as we were in Kenora in the regionals, but there was a little bit higher level of curling teams, as well, in the provincials,” Nielson explained.
“There was a lot of experienced curlers up there, that’s for sure,” he noted.
The lone win for the Stratton foursome came Saturday morning, when they picked up steals in the sixth and seventh ends to knock off Tom Leonard (Sudbury) 6-4.
“It wasn’t much different from the game that we had the day before,” Nielson said.
“We came out flying in that game, and everything was working for us,” he recalled
“We had a lot of good guards, we made some excellent come-arounds, and we got a couple of breaks here and there, especially in those steals.”
The win also ended a two-game slide for Nielson, who had dropped a 5-2 decision to the eventual champion Dale Dubinsky (Kakabeka Falls) on Friday afternoon, then lost a heart-breaking 7-6 extra-end tilt to Kevin Rutledge (Soo Curlers) that evening.
“We just had trouble holding onto the lead in our second game,” Nielson explained.
“And in the first game, they got off to a good start and just started to walk away from us.”
Unfortunately for the Stratton rink, they were unable to capitalize on the momentum from their win Saturday morning through the rest of the day.
They fell 10-3 to Chris Blair (Horne Granite) that afternoon, then finished off the round-robin with an 8-3 setback against Dupuis.
“When we went into that last game against Dupuis, we knew that we were both out of the running going into it,” Nielson noted.
“So we just decided to go out, have some fun, and then go up to the lounge to enjoy the rest of the weekend,” he added.
While his rink was unable to nab the berth to the national playdowns this November in Richmond, B.C., Nielson said his team would be willing to try and make it there next season.
“I think everybody is pretty much game to go for it again,” Nielson enthused.
“Even if there’s a challenge held at the club level, I think we’re all willing to do it once more,” he reasoned.
