Whitehorse’s Ray Mikkelsen had such a good time representing the Yukon at the Dominion Curling Club Championship last week, he’s tempted to keep the experience on the down low.
The more Yukoners who want to go, the harder it will be for his team to qualify for next year.
“It was awesome. We don’t want to tell anybody that because ... we want to go again,” joked Mikkelsen. “They treated us very well. I went to the Brier in 2002 and this was very comparable to the way they treated us there.”
Mikkelsen and his team was representing the Whitehorse Curling Club at the championship last week Scarborough, Ontario.
The team went 2-4 to finish tied for ninth out of 14 teams and just missed the playoffs.
Mikkelsen was joined by son and vice-skip Dustin Mikkelsen, second Scott Williamson and lead Wade Kopan.
It was the rink’s first trip to the championship.
“I’ve been to the Brier so I kind of knew what to expect there,” said Ray. “So my nerves were pretty good. The other guys, in that first game against Alberta, were pretty nervous.”
The team’s wins were 9-4 over New Brunswick’s team and 8-6 over N.W.T.‘s team, scoring two in the seventh end for the lead.
“Against N.W.T., everybody curled well and to our full potential,” said Ray. “If we were to have done that for our other games, we probably would have done all right.
“It was tough. We had Alberta and Manitoba in our pool and they were really strong teams.”
They also had a couple close losses. Mikkelsen and his crew lost 5-4 to Northern Ontario and 6-4 to silver-winning Manitoba after taking a one-point lead into the seventh end.
“We could have won that game too,” said Ray. “In the last end I had hammer, but they just kept too much stuff out in front of the house and I had to draw to the side of the button, and I just missed it by an inch.”
The Whitehorse Curling Club was also represented in the women’s draw.
The team of skip Jody Smallwood, third Evelyn Pasichnyk, second Joan Ewing and lead Jari Smarch, went 0-6 to tie with Nunavut in last. Their closest loss was 8-4 to Alberta’s team, who went on to tie for sixth.
TSN was covering the event and is going to air a one-hour special on the Dominion championship this Sunday.
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com