THUNDER BAY — The fields are set for next month’s Northern Ontario playdowns.
The region’s best curlers are slated to compete for spots at the Montana’s Brier and Scotties Tournament of Hearts from Jan. 21 to Jan. 26.
Trevor Bonot, Mike McCarville, Jordan Potts and Kurtis Byrd will be looking to defend their 2024 championship win and book a return trip to the Brier, where they finished 5-3 last time around.
They’re one of 13 teams entered in the event.
Sudbury’s John Epping, who joined forces with Tanner Horgan, last year’s runner-up skip, will undoubtedly be one of the favourites to knock the defending champions off their throne.
There will be plenty of familiar faces in the field at the Port Arthur Curling Centre when play kicks off.
No less than seven local teams are in the hunt.
In addition to Bonot, Dylan Johnston, Chris Silver, Frank Morrisette, Brian Adams Jr., Gary Weiss and Zach Warkentin will also field entries.
Bonot said his team hasn’t been firing on all cylinders this season, despite an extensive travel schedule that took them to Barrie this past weekend.
“And there’s a lot of pressure of trying to get back to where we were at the end of last season,” Bonot said on Dec. 1, after a come-from-behind win over Ben Mikkelsen in Tbaytel Major League of curling play.
“We’ve been OK, we just haven’t been super sharp.”
It’s all about being at their best on Jan. 21, and maintaining that level of play for the six-day event.
“We want to peak at the right time and we know now isn’t exactly the right time. But we’ve been travelling a lot and because we’ve been travelling so much, we haven’t been practising as much as we have in the past,” Bonot said. “There’s a trade-off with that. You get more game experience, but then you don’t get the reps of just throwing as many rocks.”
On the women’s side, eight teams will be vying for the title, and while Team McCarville is definitely the favourite on paper, there’s plenty of buzz surrounding Sudbury’s Emma Artichuk, who has risen to 21st in the one-year Canadian Team Ranking System.
Krysta Burns and Lauren Mann are 43rd and 59th, respectively.
Also in the field are locals Claire Dubinsky, Robyn Despins and Ashley Palmer, along with North Bay’s Laura Johnston.
McCarville, twice a runner-up in 11 Scotties appearances, is still the odds-on favourite to represent Northern Ontario at the Scotties, which are scheduled for Fort William Gardens in February.
The full group got together in Thunder Bay earlier this month, with New Brunswick’s Andrea Kelly and Sudbury’s Kendra Lilly joining up with McCarville, Ashley Sippala and Sarah Potts for a training session.
Like Bonot, they want to hit the playdowns on a high note.
“We have our training weekends to try to be together and see how each other is throwing the rock,” McCarville said recently.
“We’re try to match our releases and we try to start delivery so it’s easy for me to ice and just be consistent as possible.”
When not together, Lilly and Kelly are sending videos to coach Rick Lang for analysis.
“It was nice to actually be in person for those and not do videos.”
Provincials are coming up quickly, she added.
“We’re feeling good. We just came off a win ... in Collingwood. The ice was good. I feel like we’re throwing it really good. It’s nice to get a win, especially against all those really good southern Ontario teams.”
Team McCarville, missing Potts, beat Hollie Duncan 6-4 in the final, her third World Curling Tour event of the season. She made the playoffs in the other two.
Correction: The story initially indicated seven women's teams and 11 men's teams. We apologize for the error.