Joey Payeur
Welcome to “As The Rock Turns.”
The unfolding of the soap opera that is the upcoming NWOSSAA curling championships apparently has reached a less than fairy-tale conclusion for the Muskie curling teams–one of which seems destined to not even get to play.
Muskie boys’ coach and mixed co-coach Ron Silver was working with the understanding all season that the Fort Frances Curling Club would host NWOSSAA this coming Monday and Tuesday.
Then a string of bizarre events got underway which had the Fort lose, regain, and then lose again the right to host the event–all within a matter of a few days.
“Somehow at the NWOSSAA executive committee meeting, it was agreed that us in Region 1 and Terrace Bay in Region 3 would host NWOSSAA this year,” an angry Silver fumed yesterday.
“I only found this out last week.”
Thunder Bay (in Region 2) was supposed to host NWOSSAA two years ago, but for unknown reasons decided against doing so.
With the event hanging in the balance, Sioux Lookout (in Region 1) stepped in to take over the hosting role when no other community seemed willing or able to do so.
Thunder Bay then hosted last year’s event, but Silver believed since before this season that Fort Frances had been decided on as the NWOSSAA host this year.
The Terrace Bay situation muddied the waters to the point Silver was uncertain Monday where the event would end up.
Then he got word of misfortune for the northeastern Ontario community.
“The ice plant in Terrace Bay broke down over the weekend and they lost all their ice, as well as in the neighbouring hockey arena,” noted Silver, who early on Tuesday declared “Fort Frances is a go for NWOSSAA.”
All that went out the window hours later.
Schools in Region 3 demanded their region still get to host the event since Region 1 got the gig two years ago, with Chapleau three years ago being the last eastern region team to host.
“Our argument is that Sioux Lookout stepped in on an emergency basis and that shouldn’t affect our right to host,” argued Silver.
But despite protests from Fort High administrators to the NWOSSAA executive committee, the final mandate was issued that the championships would be move to Longlac and start this Sunday.
“It’s a feeling of utter shock, disbelief, and disappointment,” Silver seethed about the switch in venues.
Meanwhile, the repercussion on the three Muskie curling rinks is varied–from minor inconvenience to major headache to outright alienation.
The Muskie girls’ team already will be in Longlac competing at the 2017 U18 provincials that begin today.
That means they won’t have to travel anywhere to get to NWOSSAA but does mean as much as a week-long stay there.
For the Muskie boys, it gets even more complicated.
They are scheduled to be in Nipigon starting today for the male U18 provincials, where they stand a good chance of winning the title and advancing to the national U18 championships in April in Moncton, N.B.
But the playoffs for the provincials won’t wrap up until sometime Sunday.
To Silver’s knowledge, the team very well may have to play one or more provincials games that day, then hit the highway for a two-hour drive to Longlac, where they could be scheduled to play that night.
“As coach, I’m trying to keep the boys on track,” Silver said.
“It’s decisions being made by some guy behind a desk in Thunder Bay, whose e-mail address I have and who is going to get an awful lot of messages from people in Fort Frances.
“On the other hand, this gives us something else to focus on as defending NWOSSAA champs and OFSAA silver-medalists than the pressure of winning, and give us incentive to raise our game higher against people who obviously want to make it more difficult for the defending champs to repeat,” he charged.
It gets even worse for the Muskie mixed team, which seemed a lock to be one of two NorWOSSA teams to compete for an NWOSSAA title for the first time ever had the event stayed here.
But with Longlac only possessing a four-sheet rink, that possibility doesn’t seem very likely from Silver’s standpoint.
“I don’t know how they’re going to facilitate a mixed division with just four sheets,” he remarked.
“If they don’t get to go, I’m going to demand a formal apology be written to every one of those kids by the people responsible for this,” he vowed.
Meanwhile, the goal now for Silver and girls’ co-coaches Kim Beaudry and Joedy Johnson is to channel the teams’ emotions to their peak productivity.
“We’re going to take all this energy and put it into the championships now,” Silver pledged.
