Dan Falloon
Raymond Roy will be off to P.E.I. this fall in search of a national title.
Roy and his rink of third Dave Broman, second Butch Wensley, and lead Patrick Briere knocked off Denis Prevost (Coniston) 5-2 in the final of the Dominion men’s club curling provincial championship over the weekend at the Port Arthur Curling Club in Thunder Bay.
The win advanced Roy to the national playdowns set for Nov. 23-28 in Charlottetown.
“We’re definitely pretty happy,” enthused Roy.
He noted the competition at a club championship is a little odd to figure out because the teams are all talented but the atmosphere is laid-back.
“It was pretty intense competition,” Roy recalled. “It’s been a lot of years since we played where we really had to really, really concentrate.
“But it was fun,” he added. “It was a little more relaxed since it was all club teams.”
With four of the six teams sitting in a logjam for first place after the round-robin, and every team with at least one win, Roy felt the provincial title was up for grabs the entire weekend.
“All six teams were dead even,” he remarked. “Any one of the six teams could have won, it was that close.”
In the final Sunday morning, Prevost took a 1-0 lead in the second end, but Roy struck back with deuces in both the third and fifth to jump ahead 4-1.
Roy then stole a single in the sixth before Prevost took one in the seventh to round out the scoring, handing the national berth to the Fort Frances rink.
“We handed them one in the [second] end, and then we made a couple of nice shots to get our deuce, get our two [in the third],” Roy noted.
“That kind of deflated them a little bit,” he added. “They had us in real deep trouble, and we ended up getting two out of it.
“We really made most of our shots, pretty well every shot, so we played well after that.”
Roy said turning the third-end jam, and a potential steal, into points for his team was what helped him get the game on track.
“They had a couple buried in the four-foot and we were able to hit them out of there somehow,” he recalled.
“And then we made a really good shot, an in-off of our final rock, to score two when it really looked like they were going to steal one.
“That was the turning point, for sure.”
Another helpful aspect of the weekend was the ice conditions, which Roy felt his team acclimatized to quickly.
“We had real good control of our draw weight. The ice was really absolutely perfect,” he lauded.
“We were able to position rocks where we wanted to.”
Roy and his rink will need to keep that up at the national showdown, which is a new stage for all four.
“We really have no idea [what it’s going to be like],” chuckled Roy. “None of us have ever been to a nationals before, so we have no idea.
“It’s definitely going to be a lot of curling, but it’ll be fun.”
Roy also stressed the importance of the event to club curlers like him, noting this is just the second year of the bonspiel.
“This is a new event that the Dominion started last year,” he noted. “What they’ve done is they tried to create a national championship for the regular club curler.
“They try to give everybody a chance to go to a national championship.”
And Roy feels the even already has come into its own in the two years it’s been held.
“In two years, they have really pulled this off to make it a pretty popular event, so hats off to them,” he remarked.
“They just recognized that we needed a Canadian championship for the club curler, because the elite curlers are elite and the regular curlers don’t have a chance to compete for a national championship.
“It’s quite a show,” he added. “It really rivals all the other playdowns, so that’s good.”
After his victory, Roy said he had hoped to celebrate another with Kim Beaudry’s women’s rink on Sunday afternoon. Beaudry ended up losing to Melanie Patry of Coniston, but Roy had positive words for his fellow locals.
“That was a heartbreaker because it would have been nice to have two banners hanging in our club,” he lamented.
“They [Beaudry and her rink] played extremely well and the other team made some very good shots.”
To win the provincial title, Roy had to emerge from a logjam of four teams at 3-2 following the round-robin portion.
He faced Al Viel (Blind River) in one tiebreaker, winning 7-4, while Prevost advanced to the final after doubling Mike Rubenick (Port Arthur) 6-3 in the other tiebreaker.
Against Viel, Roy surged ahead, picking up a deuce in the third and then a triple in the fourth to lead 5-0.
Viel made it interesting, though, putting up two in the fifth before stealing a pair in the sixth.
Roy put out the fire, though, tacking on two in the seventh to round out the scoring and claim the win.
“We got ahead, and then we just barely hung on,” he noted. “We played really, really well to start with, and then we tried to play defensively and then it started not looking so good.
“They got a couple points, and then they got a couple more.
“It was a little nerve-wracking playing the last end, but we came through,” he added.
Roy had opened the provincial playdowns with a comeback win over Rubenick on Thursday night, coming away with a 6-4 triumph.
Roy had fallen behind 2-0 after allowing singles in the first and second ends, but responded in a big way with three in the third.
Rubenick regained the lead with a deuce in the fourth, but Roy knotted things with a single in the fifth, forged ahead with a steal of one in the sixth, then wrapped it up with another single steal in the eighth.
He then fell to 1-1 after a 5-3 loss to Viel on Friday afternoon.
The teams exchanged singles in the second and third, but Viel made steals of two and one in the fifth and sixth, respectively, to jump ahead 4-1.
Roy came back with a pair in the seventh, but Viel slammed the door shut with a single in the eighth to earn the win.
But Roy rebounded later Friday with a 7-4 victory over Prevost.
He put up singles in the first and second ends before Prevost cut the lead to 2-1 in the third.
The teams then traded deuces in the fourth and fifth, but Roy’s triple in the sixth put him ahead for good.
Prevost managed a single in the seventh, but was unable to muster anything more.
Roy’s record fell to 2-2 on Saturday morning with a 6-4 loss to Dana Loach (Horne Granite).
After Loach went up 2-0 after two, Roy put up one each in the third and fourth to pull even.
But Loach took the lead for good with a triple in the fifth for a 5-2 lead.
Roy clawed closer with a pair in the sixth, but Loach sealed it with a single in the seventh.
Heading into the final round-robin draw, Roy needed a win to assure a shot at the championship.
And he did just that—posting a definitive 7-2 victory over Jonah Dupuis (Nipigon) to put himself in the four-way tie for top spot.
Dupuis kicked off the scoring with a single in the first, but Roy blew it open with five in the second before stealing a pair in the third to go up 7-1.
Dupuis came back with a single in the fourth, but the teams shook hands after that.
