For the second year in a row, Whitehorse skip Thomas Scoffin made the cut at the Avonair Cash Spiel over the weekend in Edmonton.
Scoffin and his University of Alberta curling rink was one of eight out of 20 men’s teams to make the quarterfinal of the World Curling Tour event.
“I’m feeling awesome about it,” said Scoffin. “For the boys at the front end, it was their first (World Curling Tour) bonspiel of their careers. They played really well and were solid.
“We had a few close wins, which was nice to get under our belts early.”
Team Scoffin opened with three straight wins to secure a playoff spot. They beat Edmonton’s Team Willerton 7-6, Red Deer’s Team Eckstrand 7-1 and Calgary’s Team Harty 6-5.
The Scoffin rink then dropped their quarterfinal game 6-3 to Sherwood Park’s James Pahl.
The bonspiel, which also had a team from Japan entered, was won by South Korea’s Team Kim.
“We had some good wins this weekend,” said Scoffin. “Sometimes it goes your way and sometimes it doesn’t and we’ve been on both sides of that before. We got some good breaks, but we also made a lot of good shots this weekend.
“Our last game of the pool play (against Harty) was a good battle. It was difficult ice conditions and both teams were making some good shots. It came down to the last rock and we made the shot for the win. It was pretty cool to clinch a close one like that.”
Scoffin, 20, reached the semifinal of the Avonair last year with his previous team.
His current rink began the new season by winning the Calgary Curlers Corner Junior Bonspiel two weeks ago.
Curling with Scoffin this season on the University of Alberta’s junior team - the Junior Golden Bears - is third Aiden Proctor, second David Aho and lead Brayden Power.
Aho curled with Scoffin on Team Yukon at the 2012 Canadian Junior Curling Championships. He is one of very few curlers to make more appearances at the junior nationals than Scoffin with eight.
The third year commerce student is skip for both the junior and senior teams at the University of Alberta.
Scoffin, who is in his final year of eligibility for the junior nationals, will attempt to make his eighth appearance at the national championship next year before competing in the Canadian university curling championships with the senior team in March.
Last season Team Scoffin lost in the final of Alberta’s junior provincial championships, thus ending a string of seven consecutive appearances for Scoffin at the junior nationals.
Scoffin competed six times for Yukon and then for Alberta in 2013, reaching the final and taking home silver.
Contact Tom Patrick at
tomp@yukon-news.com