Joey Payeur
The number of teams may have been as low as anyone can remember, but spirits were high for Devlin skip Mike Badiuk by the time all was said and done.
His rink downed Thunder Bay’s Doug Skinner 8-5 in the ‘A’ final Sunday to finish his undefeated march through the weekend and claim top honours at the annual Fort Frances men’s bonspiel for the second-straight year.
“It was excellent, and everyone here has a really, really good time,” said club manager Rick Grenda.
Badiuk and his quartet of Travis Showalter, Mitch Seguin, and Matt Johnson posted a perfect 4-0 record, sending Skinner and his crew home with only second-place money—money which was handed out in a unique fashion this year.
“A new thing we tried this year is instead of waiting until the end to pay out the first through fourth-place teams in the ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ events, for the first time I can remember, we did things in a pay-as-you-go format,” noted Grenda.
“You had to win two games in the event you were in, but if you did, you got paid out after that second win and then every win after,” he explained.
“The guys prefer that, especially the guys who are winning lots,” he added. “In some cases, it was also nice for the out-of-town teams who didn’t have to hang around until the end to get their money.
“But for the most part, that isn’t really a big issue—not when you have a 1 p.m. start time for your last draw, which is not a late draw.”
In the ‘B’ final, Fort Frances’ John Jordbro and his foursome of third Ethan Jordbro, second Brad Houghton, and lead Rod Newman downed Ron Bridgeman’s Fort Frances crew.
Meanwhile, the team of Tom Fry (skip), Tom Reid (third), Brian Angus (second), and Bob Derksen (lead) got the better of Dave Broman’s quartet in another all-Fort Frances match-up in the ‘C’ final (no scores were available by press time for the ‘B’ and ‘C’ finals).
Another new facet to the bonspiel saw the first four teams ousted from the regular draw grouped together to play in what Grenda playfully called a “high-steaks” skins game.
Those teams played in two separate semi-finals, competing for $10 per skin, with the winners then challenging each other in a final which saw each skin won translating into four steaks donated by The Place here.
When the bonspiel barbecue battle was over, Fort Frances’ Ron MacKinnon and Brad Gushulak ended up tied with four skins each—sending each crew home with a mouth-watering haul of 16 steaks apiece.
The cooler weather was a boon to ice-makers Rob Botel and Gary Gregory, who had a much easier time maintaining top-notch playing conditions for the curlers as compared to the provincial men’s championships here in early February, when unseasonably mild temperatures had them scrambling to preserve good quality on the rink’s six sheets.
Grenda admitted to being disappointed only 28 teams were entered in the bonspiel, which once upon a time boasted as many as 108 teams.
“That was the only down note. That was the lowest number we have had in quite a while,” he noted.
“There were various reasons,” he added. “Some of the teams that go in every year had to take their kids to a hockey tournament in Winnipeg this year and some people had illnesses.
“The economy might have had a little bit to do with it, but I’m not going to say that had a major effect.”
Grenda said the club will be proactive next season when it comes to trying to bump up the numbers for the event.
“We’ve got to work on our regular curlers and teams right from the start of the season,” he stressed. “We’ll try and encourage some of the teams to, instead of curling with the same four guys every year, break up into two pairs and bring out some friends and start new teams.
“We also want to encourage them to go out of town to more bonspiels, where they will hopefully make some friends that they can talk into coming here for our event, whether it’s people in Emo, Stratton, Kenora, or Dryden.
“If we don’t go to their bonspiels, they’re not going to come down here,” Grenda reasoned.
