STRATFORD – The Listowel Curling Club is sending its first ever rink to the men’s curling provincials.
Skip Daryl Shane’s team is going to the 2012 Dominion Tankard Ontario Men’s Curling Championship, held Feb. 6-12 at the Stratford Rotary Complex.
Vice Bruce Cox, a Listowel resident, said the group is excited about the event.
“Very confident. Just the teams that are there, we’ve played probably three quarters of them this year and we’ve beat them all at least once,” Cox said. “We’ve played everybody there at least once in the past. We kind of know how they play.”
The team won the Zone 14 ‘B’ championship in Mount Forest on Dec. 10, losing to Jake Higgs’ team from Harriston.
Listowel exacted revenge when the rinks met again in the ‘A’ finals at the Region 4 (Zones 13-16) event in Brantford, taking the title in extra ends.
Harriston’s Brent Ross, who throws fourth rock, talked about the regional setback.
“We’ve been quite fortunate, we’ve had a really good run with them, winning a lot of games in a row against (Shane’s team),” Ross said. “I thought it was going to go our way in that one too but we lost in extra ends.”
Higgs still punched their ticket to the Tankard by winning the ‘B’ championship over Bowie Abbis-Mills, the only zone winner to lose an ‘A’ region final and still capture the ‘B’.
Shane, from Waterloo, and Cox have curled together for about 15 years. They’ve been flanked by second Dylan Tippin from Sudbury for the last five.
This year they added his brother, lead Brandon Tippin of Barrie, after the other member of the team decided not to play.
With a new member on the squad it took some time to start working as a cohesive unit.
“This year we just started gelling, our first spiel was in Kitchener and we didn’t do so well,” noted 49-year-old Cox. “We were in two other (recent) spiels and qualified in both of them, so we’ve been getting better and better as the year’s gone on. We’ve gone on a roll over the last couple of weekends and made it here.”
An aggressive style of play on the ice is what makes them tick.
“We’re pretty aggressive, like to go for it every end. Lots of rocks in play,” Cox said.
Cox has been to the provincials once before. Back in 2004 he was part of Al Hutchinson’s Bluewater team that finished the round robin 4-5, missing the playoffs. He learned a valuable lesson eight years ago in Owen Sound.
“Learn how to pace yourself, it’s a long week,” he chuckled. “That was very nerve-wracking, that was my first time there.”
This is Shane’s fourth trip to this level.
The Canadian Team Ranking System is a points system to rate men’s and women’s curling teams across the nation through the Canadian Curling Association.
As of last week, Shane’s rink is 55th of 136 men’s teams registered.
The upcoming Tankard is a round robin setup between 11 teams, with an average of two draws per team, per day Monday through Friday, followed by tiebreakers and a page playoff system.
For more information on the Tankard and draw schedules, check out www.stratfordtankard.ca.