Our path to Richmond

In this post I'll detail how we managed to qualify for The 2011 Dominion in Richmond.

2009/10 Season

Our team started curling in the Richmond Hill Curling Club Monday Men's League in the 2009/10 season. As a new team, we started in the 'C' division. By the end of the season we moved up to the 'A' division and qualified for the Dominion Club Championship playoffs with the second most points. In the playoff final, we played Dennis Moretto who had finished first overall in points. It was a close game but we came out on top and were Richmond Hill Curling Club Champions in our first season together!

In early 2010 we played in the Goldline TCA Men's Bonspiel. We were a 5-man team with Mike Maddin as Greg was also playing in the OCA Regionals and Challenge Round. We make it to the Championship Game but lost a close one to Adam Beck, finishing with a 7-1 record. As Club Champions, we played in the 2010 Dominion Zones at the Granite Club. We had high hopes, but losses to Tom Worth and Bob Stoll sent us home with a 2-2 record prior to making the playoff round.


2010/11 Season

We curled together again last season. We stayed in the 'A' division all season and finished first in points. In The Dominion Club Championship playoffs playoff semi-final, we were playing former Brier competitor Jim Anderson and we managed to win an "old time" curling game by the score of 2-1! We were tied 1-1 coming home and made our draw for the win. In the playoff final, we played John Rumney and again managed to come out on top to defend our Richmond Hill Curling Club Championship!

Out team again played in the Goldline TCA Men's Bonspiel in early 2011. And again we were a 5-man team, this time with Ian Gabel. We had a great week and made the Championship Game once again. This time, we came out on top against Ian Fleming to finish with an 8-0 record.


2011 Dominion Zones

The 2011 Dominion Zones were once again held at the Granite Club in Toronto from October 21-23. There were 18 teams in the zone with 2 teams qualifying for the Provincial Championship. We had a bye to start and our first game was against Ian MacLellan. We started slow but finished strong to win that game. We won our next game against Kuuter to make it to the 'A' playoff qualifier game. On Sunday morning we played Vito Cosentino in the qualifier. It was an early game, and our skipped "decided" to sleep in and miss the practice and first 1.5 ends! Jordan managed to draw the pin to start with hammer and he scored a skipper's deuce in the first end before Greg took over midway through the second end. Greg must have still been half asleep since we ended up having to steal the last 2 ends to win! But a win is a win and we qualified for the playoff game. Our playoff was against Bob Garvin. We scored a big end early and hung on to win and qualify for the Ontario Dominion Provincials! Rob Kavals from High Park was the other qualifier from our zone. Kudos to the Granite Club for their great ice.


2011 Dominion Provincials

The 2011 Dominion Ontario Provincials were held at the Acton and Milton Curling Clubs from October 28-30. The format is 2 pools of 5 teams playing a round robin. The top 2 in each pool qualify for the playoffs, which are a semi-final and final. In our pool were Pat Ferris from Grimsby, Dayna Deruelle from Brampton, Paul Bourne from Pembroke and Dave Mann from London. The ice was curling at both clubs and super fast all weekend at Milton which made for exciting games.

Our Friday night games were at Milton. Our first game was against Pat Ferris.We started slow giving up 2 steals to start the game but we picked it up and be 1-up coming home with hammer, and we held the lead to win. Pat had a strong team and we figure we could run into them again in the playoffs. Up next was Dayna Deruelle. We stole a few of the middle ends and put the game away with a 3 in the 7th to win 7-2. It was a good start to go 2-0 on Friday.

The Saturday games were at Acton. We were lucky to have the morning bye and we played Paul Bourne in our next game. We scored 3 in the first and kept the pressure on to secure a 9-3 win after 6. With that win we clinched first in our pool but going 4-0 was important to secure first end hammer throughout the playoffs. Our last round robin game was against Dave Mann. We stole a couple 2s in the middle ends and won 8-3 to finish the round robin at 4-0. Saturday night was the dinner/dance at the Milton Curling Club, and we had some food and drinks and watch Pat Ferris win a tie-breaker over Paul Bourne to finish second in our pool.

The playoffs on Sunday were back at Milton. We were up against Nathan Martin, who finished second in the other pool. The other semi-final was Ferris against the other pool winner, Travis Fanset. We had a wild game as the score line shows:

Nathan Martin	0	3	0	2	0	2	1	0	-	-	-	8
Greg Balsdon	2	0	4	0	2	0	0	1	-	-	-	9

Greg made a draw to the 4-foot to win and send us to the finals in a rematch against Pat Ferris. The finals were anti-climactic (which was fine by us!) as we started with a 3 and stole another 3 to take an early 6-0 lead. We ended up winning 9-1 after 5 ends and we were Provincials Champions! Next stop: Richmond. We can't wait!

-Jordan