Brier eludes Roy yet again

It took Raymond Roy 10 years to make a return appearance to the Northern Ontario men’s playdowns. He’s hoping it won’t take another decade to get there again.
“If I have to wait another 10 years, it will probably be in seniors’ curling,” joked Roy, who has made it to the provincials on three different occasions only to come up short in his bid for a Brier berth.
“We were definitely trying to win it [this year in Marathon]. Anything short of a win was a disappointment,” he said.
Perhaps most disappointing for Roy–and his team of third Scott Gobeil, second Dave Broman, and lead Don Robertson–was their failure to make the playoffs despite having several cracks at it.
In fact, despite having a 3-4 record heading into the final draw of the round-robin last Friday afternoon, a win would have forced a three-way tie-breaker.
Instead, a 7-5 loss to eventual champ Tim Phillips (Idylwylde) sent them packing.
Trailing 2-1 after five ends, Roy scored what looked to be a huge three-ender for a 4-2 lead. But he quickly returned the favour by giving up three in the very next end.
Roy fought back to tie the score at 5-5 with a single in the eighth, but Phillips put up a pair in the ninth and then ran the Fort Frances rink out of rocks in the 10th.
“We got three in the sixth and then–bang–they made a couple of good shots and got three back,” said Roy. “We couldn’t have asked for a better situation. Win and you’re in.
“We controlled our own destiny.”
Roy said scoring first proved to be the difference at Marathon. When they grabbed the early lead, they won. When they didn’t, they lost.
“The problem was the three games we won, we got ahead and played our style,” he noted. “The five games we lost, we had trouble generating offence.”
Roy said as bad as they feel about missing their shot at advancing to the Brier next month in Saskatoon, he sympathized with the Dave MacInnes rink (McIntyre).
They went undefeated in the round-robin (8-0), then won their first playoff game over Phillips to advance to the final–only to lose 6-4 to him in the rematch with all the marbles on the line.
“To go 9-0 and lose, wow . . . he was the best team out there,” Roy said of MacInnes. “[But] Phillips, they’re a solid team from top to bottom. Against us, he made some terrific shots.”
So what’s next if you can’t play against the best curlers this country has to offer? Well, you grab a beer and a comfy chair, and you watch it at home . . . and think about what might have been.
“We like to watch it because it’s interesting because you’ve played against the guys,” said Roy. “It’s interesting matching strategies.”