Trevor Bonot and John Epping received their opening video games on the playdowns on Wednesday.
THUNDER BAY – John Epping’s represented Ontario on the Brier on three events in his curling profession.
So what’s it like for the 41-year-old to be competing in his first Northern Ontario males’s curling championship on the Port Arthur Curling Centre this week?
“It’s as weird as you can imagine,” Epping stated.
“It’s very strange to not be in southern Ontario for the tankard, but everyone here has been so welcoming to me thus far. It’s been really nice.”
Epping, who reached the semifinal spherical in his first journey to the Canadian males’s curling championship in 2018, kicked off his week in Thunder Bay with a 9-3 win over Port Arthur’s Gary Weiss in his opening ‘A’ occasion recreation on Wednesday afternoon.
Holding a 5-3 lead after six ends, his Sudbury-based rink broke the sport open with a three-ender within the seventh.
“We played pretty good for the first draw,” Epping stated.
“We’re simply attempting to get used to the ice, the rocks and the ambiance right here, so we’ll take the win for positive.”
Epping has joined forces with final 12 months’s provincial runner-up and 2022 champion Tanner Horgan, who now performs second.
The remainder of the rink options Tanner’s youthful brother Jacob at third and Ian McMillan at lead.
With 5 wins on the cashspiel circuit this season, the staff is taken into account to be the favorite to signify Northern Ontario on the Montana’s Brier in Kelowna, B.C. later this winter.
“Going into the year, we really didn’t have any expectations on how many events we wanted to win,” Epping stated. “We wished to play effectively sufficient to place some factors on the board and make our means up the world rankings.
“I think we were a little surprised that we ended up winning five events.”
Epping’s fundamental challenger this week is anticipated to be defending provincial champion Trevor Bonot.
His Fort William Curling Membership squad, which incorporates third Mike McCarville, second Jordan Potts and lead Kurtis Byrd, outlasted North Bay’s Jeff Brown 9-5 to begin the match on a profitable word.
Brown took a 3-2 lead after a three-ender within the third finish, however Bonot bounced again by scoring three of his personal within the fourth and held the benefit for the remainder of the sport.
“It was a bit of a struggle for me out there today but the boys kept me in it so that was pretty good,” Bonot stated. “Hopefully we’ll be a little more sharper tomorrow.”
In the meantime, Sandy MacEwan’s Sudbury squad opened up their week with a 10-2 romp over Fort William’s Zach Warkentin in seven ends after stealing six factors within the ultimate three ends.
“We caught on to the ice early and that was the biggest thing for us,” MacEwan stated. “Our main goal today was to learn what the ice was doing and I think we accomplished that.”
In different ‘A’ quarterfinal motion, Dylan Johnston’s Fort William squad defeated Port Arthur’s Brian Adams Jr. by a rating of 10-6
Johnston will sq. off with Epping in an ‘A’ semifinal, with the opposite contest seeing MacEwan going up in opposition to Bonot. Each matchups happen at 2:30 p.m. Thursday.
In the meantime, Kenora’s Dustin Kroeker picked up his first win of the match after beating Matthew Hunt of Sault Ste. Marie in a wild 9-8 ‘B’ occasion matchup.
The seven-team ladies’s provincial playdowns begins at 4 p.m. Wednesday.
The lads’s competitors resumes at 8:30 p.m. with ‘B’ occasion contests.
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