Staff
Currie also
eliminated
A pair of rinks with local connections came up short in their quest to make the playoffs at the Northern Ontario men’s provincial championships in Sault Ste. Marie.
The Trevor Bonot rink from the Stratton Curling Club, which included third Al Macsemchuk, second Scott McCallum, and lead Tim Jewett, was eliminated from further contention this morning when Mike Assad (Thunder Bay) beat Robbie Gordon (Sudbury) to nab the final playoff berth.
In order to force a tiebreaker, Bonot needed to beat Patrick Gelinas (Mattawa) in his final round-robin match while have Assad lose.
Bonot kept up his end of the bargain, beating Gelinas 9-5 in nine ends, but the Lakehead crew triumphed 9-4 in eight ends to knock out the Stratton rink.
Bonot, who entered action yesterday with a 5-3 record, saw his playoff hopes dim after losing both his games—falling 8-4 to defending champ Brad Jacobs (Sault Ste. Marie) in the afternoon and then 7-4 in nine ends to Jordan Chandler (Sudbury) last night.
Meanwhile, the Jeff Currie rink (Thunder Bay), which feature Devlin’s Mike Badiuk at lead, had their playoff hopes dashed last night after a 6-5 loss to Assad.
Currie, also joined by third Dylan Johnston and second Cody Johnston, had earned an 8-6 win over David MacInnes (Timmins) yesterday afternoon to keep their slim playoff hopes alive.
Currie’s week then came to an unceremonious end this morning with a 9-2 five-end thrashing at the hands of Colin Koivula (Thunder Bay), leaving them with a final record of 4-7
Mike Jakubo (Copper Cliff) and Brad Jacobs (Sault Ste. Marie) clinched the top two spots in the round-robin standings yesterday and will play each other in the 1 vs. 2 Page playoff game tonight.
Assad, meanwhile, will play in the 3 vs. 4 game this afternoon against Tim Phillips (Sault Ste. Marie), who eliminated Joe Scharf (Thunder Bay) with an 8-7 win this morning.
The final goes tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. (ET), with the winner to represent Northern Ontario at this year’s Tim Hortons Brier from March 3-11 in Saskatoon, Sask.
