There's no telling whether the Yellowknife Curling Centre will produce an Olympian but it did produce two rinks that will be heading to a national championship later this year.
photo courtesy of NWT Curling
The NWT playdowns for the Travelers Curling Club Championships were held at the Fort Smith Curling Club this past weekend and it was a clean sweep for the capital as Sarah Stroeder skipped her rink of Alanah Jansen, Marie-Claude Savoie and Anneli Jokela to victory in a best-of-five against Betti Delorey from the Hay River Curling Club.
The men's rink consisting of Shadrach McLeod, Steve Robertson, Devon Bouillon and Rob Koehler were also victorious on the men's side as they overcame two other rinks from Hay River and Fort Smith to win that title in a tiebreak. More on them in a bit.
Stroeder, who will be making her third trip to the national championships and first as a skip, was able to win the best-of-five series in three straight games and even though the scores were a bit lopsided, she said it wasn't as easy as it looked.
“The scores definitely didn't reflect the level of play,” she said. “We had to make some good shots and they forced us on many occasions. They made us work for it.”
And when one team is scoring big, like Stroeder's was, it means the shot-making is on and Stroeder said her teammates were making some big shots.
“We were able to catch on quickly to how the ice was playing and that's really important,” she said. “You know where to put the broom down and it helps you when you know how the rocks are running.”
Both tournaments were being played under the five-rock rule, which is what Curling Canada will be moving to beginning with the next batch of national championships. As of right now, the four-rock rule is being played, meaning no rocks can be hit out of play until four rocks have been thrown in an end.
“Even with the new rule, we stayed aggressive,” said Stroeder. “We stayed ahead and kept tucking rocks in behind guards.”
The third game was the one which Stroeder felt was the closest one and it was also the most dangerous one, she added.
“We knew by winning the first two games, we had a buffer,” she said. “The Hay River women were getting into it, though, and they were putting more pressure on us. They played really well, considering they haven't been able to play on their ice for two years now with no curling club in their town.”
photo courtesy of NWT Curling
On the men's side, all three teams ended up tied after the double round-robin with identical two-win, two-loss records. McLeod had to defeat Bruce McArthur of Fort Smith in his final game just to get into the tiebreaker but it turned out to be a big win by a score of 5-4 as it gave him a bye right to the last tiebreaker, leaving McArthur and Wyatt Scheller of Hay River to battle it out in the first tiebreaker.
Scheller beat McArthur, 8-7, thanks to a steal of two in the final end to set up the meeting with McLeod. In the final, Scheller opened up with a deuce in the first end while McLeod responded with a single in the second. Scheller increased his lead in the third end by scoring three but McLeod bounced back in the fourth with a four-spot to the game at 5-5.
Scheller scored a single in the fifth to take a 6-5 lead but McLeod put up another four-ender in the sixth to jump out in front, 9-6. Scheller counted a single in the seventh but it was too little, too late as McLeod managed to run Scheller out of rocks in the final end to win, 9-7.
No one from the men's team was available for comment as of press time as they were travelling back from Fort Smith.