Lee rink ousted at ‘Northwesterns’

After finishing with a 3-4 record at the senior men’s “Northwestern” curling playdowns, Terry Lee’s rink came away feeling they could have advanced to the provincials quite easily.
But an 0-2 start, which saw the local rink lose 13-5 to Marathon and then 6-5 to Dryden (on last rock), left Lee and his quartet of Ron Martinuk, Ken Noble, and Ray Rousseau with an uphill battle the rest of the way.
“It hurts us because we were struggling and we lost our first two games,” said Lee. “We curled pretty good but the two teams that advanced curled the best last weekend.
“We just didn’t curl as good as we could,” he added.
Lee’s rink did curl much better after their first two losses, beating Nipigon 8-5 and then dumping Fort William 8-3 to pull their record even at 2-2.
But an 8-5 loss in their next game against Port Arthur was devastating to their chances of advancing. Martinuk said it was a “very well played game” that could have gone either way except for the fact Lee’s rink gave up three in the early going and were forced to play catch-up the rest of the way.
“If we could have won that game, we would have had a chance,” said Lee. “They jumped out to an early lead and we had to play a different [style] of game.”
They split their last two games–losing 8-6 to Red Rock and then beating Kenora 7-5–to finish out of the hunt at 3-4.
Still, the rink came away from this year’s playdowns knowing they were just a shot or two away from becoming a serious threat to advance to the provincials.
“We were in range all the time but it just came down to missing a key shot, and once you miss at this level, it costs you,” said Martinuk, who was part of the local rink that won just one game at the same playdowns last season.
“We missed some shots and got outcurled a bit but we played better as we went along,” he added.
Dryden and the Port Arthur, both with 5-2 records, advanced to the “Northerns” in Elliot Lake.