Joey Payeur
If Northern Ontario’s junior men’s curling rink had its own Facebook page, it may have changed its status last night from “playoff hopefuls” to “playoffs unlikely.”
The Cody Johnston rink, from the Fort William Curling Club in Thunder Bay, which includes Devlin native Mike Badiuk at third, split its two games yesterday at the M&M Meat Shops Canadian Juniors Curling Championships in Calgary.
Those results leave them in dire straits to make the top three and get into the playoffs as Northern Ontario (2-4) was sitting in a three-way tie for eighth with the Northwest Territories and B.C. heading into today’s action.
Saskatchewan leads the standings at 6-0, followed by Newfoundland and Labrador and New Brunswick, which are tied for second at 5-2.
Johnston and Co. knew there was almost no room for error entering yesterday’s action with a mark of 1-3 and facing the only two teams behind them in the standings.
P.E.I. (2-5), skipped by Spencer Pitre, bolted out to a 3-0 lead after two ends in Draw 6 against Northern Ontario.
But Johnston’s rink fought back with four in the third and two more in the fourth en route to an 8-6 victory.
Northern Ontario then had the misfortune of running into a newly-confident Territories team, skipped by Colin Miller, which broke out of the ranks of the winless with an 11-4 pasting of B.C.’s Jonathan Gardner in Draw 6.
A back-and-forth first half of the game saw Northern Ontario ahead 4-3 after four ends.
But the Territories kicked into high gear after that, scoring three in the fifth. Then following Northern Ontario’s single in the sixth, added a four-ender in the seventh to cruise to an 11-6 decision.
One positive note for Northern Ontario last night was the play of Badiuk, who had the best shot-making percentage of any of the thirds in Draw 7 at 96 percent.
He currently is tied for fourth at his position with Michael Ng (Alberta) and Cory Schuh (Newfoundland and Labrador) with a cumulative mark of 75 percent after seven draws.
Northern Ontario will try to stay alive in the playoff hunt by facing Quebec (2-5) this afternoon and then the Yukon (3-3) this evening.
