Staff
Somebody is going to blink first today.
It will be a battle of unbeatens this afternoon when the Thunder Bay rink skipped by Dylan Johnston, featuring Devlin’s Mike Badiuk and Travis Showalter from Nestor Falls, faces defending Olympic men’s champion Brad Jacobs (Sault Ste. Marie) at the Northern Ontario men’s curling championship in Thunder Bay.
Both teams were at 4-0 after the first two days of action.
Johnston had no interest in playing any longer than necessary yesterday, pounding both his opponents into submission in six ends.
He opened by blanking Thunder Bay’s Jordan Chandler 7-0, turning a close 2-0 game after four ends into a runaway with steals of three in the fifth and two more in the sixth.
Johnston then used a three-ender in the fourth to break open a 2-1 game before adding five more in the sixth to dump Ryan Sayer (New Liskeard) 10-2.
Jacobs, meanwhile, topped Chris Glibota (Copper Cliff) 9-4 in nine ends before downing Bryan Burgess (Kakabeka Falls) 8-3 in eight.
Johnston also faces Al “The Iceman” Hackner (Thunder Bay) tonight before concluding round-robin play tomorrow morning against Tanner Horgan (Sudbury).
Jacobs will get Horgan tonight and then Hackner tomorrow as he and Johnston jockey for top spot and a bye to Sunday’s final.
The second- and third-place teams will play in the semi-final later tomorrow.
