Lucas Punkari
It may have looked easy, but it certainly wasn’t the case for Stratton’s Maury Nielson at the Dominion Club Championship regional playdowns in Kenora over the weekend.
Nielson, along with third Neil Haw, second Andrew McCormick, and lead Tyler Nielson, went a perfect 4-0 to capture first spot in the six-team men’s showdown and a berth at the provincial playdowns April 8-10 in Sault Ste. Marie.
If you ask Nielson, who is 47 and has been curling since the age of 14, the entire weekend all came around for him in his rink’s opening tilt Friday night against Ted Szajewski (Keewatin).
“We got three points to start things off, but then we gave up four in the very next end so that was kind of scary to see happen right off the bat,” he remarked.
“The team got together in between ends and we decided to go with some guards and play a solid draw game because that’s what you need to do against the solid curlers that were up there, and it all worked out for us,” he added.
The Stratton Curling Club reps went on to take the opener 11-5, then beat rinks from Sioux Lookout, Atikokan, and Kenora to clinch first place by Saturday night.
That meant they didn’t have to play their final round-robin game Sunday morning against Don DeBenedet (Fort Frances).
“We talked about it on Saturday night and said there was no sense in playing that game as everything had been wrapped up standing-wise,” Nielson explained.
“Then when we talked to everyone else upstairs, they were all in the same boat so the event basically wrapped up on the Saturday,” he added.
As for DeBenedet, his rink of third Ian McLennan, second David Green, and lead Rod Newman finished in a three-way tie for second with Szajewski and Steve Lundin (Kenora) with identical 2-2 records.
But the Fort Frances foursome was awarded second place by virtue of having the best average total in the pre-game draw to the button held before each round-robin match.
“We played pretty well but we just got a bit unlucky at times,” DeBenedet explained.
“We had a picked stone in one of our games that ended up being very crucial in the final score,” he recalled.
“And at other times, the breaks just didn’t go our way at the right times,” he reasoned.
