Things with the team are coming together.
After a good first game in Brandon, MB we ran up against former Canadian and World Champion, Jeff Stoughton. A great test for our squad. We really played well and controlled a good part of the game but failed to take advantage of some opportunities and ended up losing 9 to 3. The score is not a very good indication of how we played. We followed that loss with another well played game against Don Nelson which we ended up losing on last rock! Despite the losses the team seemed to be in pretty good shape and had some time to discuss our plans for Saturday’s matches. It was time to tighten things up a bit.
Our 5th man, Jeff Isaacson (Ike) made the trip with us and we decided to rotate him in on Saturday morning. Our game against Brendan Taylor was not quite as sharp as we had hoped but we were able to battle back from a two point deficit in the final end to force an extra end where we caught a break when Mr. Taylor missed his last shot giving us the victory.
As a team we decided that we needed to take full advantage of that break and put a few good games together. We proceeded to play our two best games of the year so far against Manitoba veteran Dave Bohemer and Scottish transplant Willie Lyburn! Things just started to click and I could tell that a little more time on the ice was the key to the team putting our shaky start in Ottawa behind us!
By winning those two games we qualified to the quarterfinal bracket of the event! This is significant for two reasons. Number one, we accomplished our first team goal of the year by “Qualifying” in one of our first 4 events. Number two, we earned some serious cash by advancing to that level, which takes a little pressure off of our pocket books! J Unfortunately our run ended there as we came out a little flat on Monday and lost our game to Alan Lyburn (Willies older brother). Nevertheless, we are all in good spirits to have seen some moderate success early in the season. You can see our results here.
So what’s next? Many of you already know that this weekend is the St. Paul Cash Spiel, which I happen to host as well as play in! This is another 32 team WCT event with good money up for grabs for the teams that advance to the final 8 in the Championships. Please stop by or check us out online at http://www.stpaulcashspiel.org/.
I hope to get some photos (in our very popular Gemini uniforms!) this weekend to send along with my next update.
As always, thanks to our sponsors.
Wish us luck.
John Benton
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