Lucas Punkari
With clubmate Raymond Roy taking his rink to the tie-breaker round at The Dominion Curling Club Championships last November, Don DeBenedet is hoping to bring the Fort Frances Curling Club back to the national championship this year, with his journey starting Friday in Kenora at the regional playdowns.
“Our goal is to match what they did, but it certainly won’t be easy,” DeBenedet admitted.
DeBenedet, who describes his team of third Ian McLennan, second David Green, and lead Rod Newman as “just your average club team,” will battle it out with five other rinks to capture the regional men’s crown.
The winner gains a berth to the provincial playdowns April 8-10 in Sault Ste. Marie.
“We’ve been curling together for a long time, and we’ve been doing pretty well again this year,” DeBenedet noted.
“We’re not a really strong team by any means, but we always seem to do well so I guess we’re doing all right,” he reasoned.
Normally, Dave Bondett would be playing with the team as third.
But due to a rule for The Dominion Club Championships that states that a team only may have one member who had participated in a provincial playdown during the last two seasons, Bondett was forced to sit this one out.
“Those rules are there just to make sure that teams aren’t loaded with really top players and it stays as just a club level event,” DeBenedet said.
“I really like the idea of having an event such as this, and I think this is one of the best idea that’s come along in years,” he added.
DeBenedet will open play Friday at 8 p.m. against Laurie Jefferson (Sioux Lookout).
Play will continue through to Sunday morning, with the best record from the six team round-robin capturing the provincial berth.
If there’s a tie at the top, a tie-breaker will be held to determine the winner.
There also will be a two-team women’s competition taking place this weekend although no local rink is vying for the regional crown.
