Joey Payeur
The best young curlers in Northern Ontario will congregate here this coming season.
The Northern Ontario Curling Association recently announced the under-21 (formerly junior) provincial championship will be contested at the Fort Frances Curling Club from Dec. 27-30.
“We’re quite happy with the news,” said club president Ron Silver.
“It’s always good to be involved in a NOCA event
“This will give us a chance to be able to showcase our local talent, hopefully,” he added.
That talent includes Silver’s son, Chris, who skipped his rink of third Daniel Vandenbrand, second Jason Bazylewski, and lead Davis Jackson to the junior provincials two years ago.
On the women’s side, local skip Hailey Beaudry will look to return to the U21 provincials along with Nestor Falls-based second Erin Tomalty.
The tandem joined up with Bryn Morgan and Tiana Gaudry from Thunder Bay, and curled out of the Fort William Curling Club to finish fourth with a 1-3 record at last year’s event in North Bay.
Tory Beaudry of here also may take a run at the provincial crown skipping a team that likely will include some combination of Anika Beaudry, Katrina Slomke, Ashley Payne, and Andrea Schram.
Although Fort Frances is located in Region 1, any local entrants interested in earning a provincial berth will have to finish in the top four in either an East or West Region qualifier in early December–unless the qualifiers are rendered irrelevant due to a lack of teams.
“Last year, there was only seven guys’ teams that signed up for the qualifiers and five for the girls when there’s room to take eight of each,” Ron Silver explained.
“So it turned out everyone that signed up made it,” he noted.
“It could possibly happen again this year.”
The NOCA U21 provincials usually have been held in different communities for the men and women.
But the two will share the same facility this time around due to a schedule change to the event implemented by the provincial body, which means the six-sheet local facility will work fine to accommodate it.
“They’ve added a few extra hours to each of the days, which will not necessarily make for longer days for the athletes, just for those of in charge at the venue,” Silver laughed.
Defending provincial and national U21 champions Krysta Burns and Tanner Horgan, both from Sudbury, are the early favourites for this year’s NOCA playdowns in their respective divisions.
“They will be the top two teams to beat–they both have some outstanding under-21 talent,” Silver noted.
“Our kids are no slouches, either, and having home-ice advantage will probably help us,” he added.
“But Burns and Horgan have received support from Curling Canada after winning the nationals.
“That means they have better access to more resources,” Silver said. “They’ll be tough.”
