A few weeks ago, Tyler Tardi and his rinkmates represented Canada at the world junior curling championship in China. Now, a slightly different version of the team is about to aim for a provincial title and is favoured to sweep to victory.
For the rest of the rinks at the B.C. men's under-18 championship - including the James Brown foursome from the Prince George Golf and Curling Club - trying to beat Tardi and company will be one slippery task.
The under-18 championship is new this season. It starts Friday in Nanaimo and runs through Sunday. The winner will advance to the first-ever U-18 nationals, April 17-22 in Moncton, N.B.
Earlier this season, Tardi's Langley/New Westminster rink rolled to the B.C. junior (U-21) title and then prevailed at nationals as well. On the world stage, Tardi and his mates - third Sterling Middleton, second Jordan Tardi and lead Nicholas Meister - finished tied with Norway for fourth in round-robin competition and narrowly lost a tiebreaker (8-7) to get into the playoffs.
In Nanaimo, Tardi will still have Middleton at third but will have a different front end - second Scott Gray and lead Derek Chandler. Brown and his P.G. team - third Alasdair Wilson, second Tyler Slaney and lead Andrew Sherstan - will face the Tardi rink in Draw 3, set for 8:30 a.m. on Saturday.
Team Brown will open the event against Jordan Geiger's Invermere rink on Friday at 10 a.m. In Draw 2, Friday at 3 p.m., Brown will take on Adam Raber of Vernon/Salmon Arm. After Draw 3 on Saturday morning, the top two teams in each bracket (A and B) will advance to the playoff round.
Rinks in the other bracket are skipped by Hayato Sato (players from Cloverdale, New Westminster and Coquitlam), Duncan Silversides (Victoria), Thomas Love (Vernon) and Ramsay Murray (Kelowna/Kamloops).
The U-18 provincial tournament also has an eight-team women's division. Included in that group is a rink led by Prince George's Carly Connor and featuring third Lorelei Guidos (Salmon Arm), second Hannah Lindner (Fort St. John) and lead Jordan Henson ((Prince George). Team Connor will start out with a Friday morning game against Clare Schmidt of Winfield and will play Gracelyn Richards of Comox that afternoon. Connor and her teammates will close out preliminary competition with a Saturday morning tilt against Heather Drexel, whose rink is formed by players from Coquitlam, Cloverdale and Chilliwack.
Other women's teams in the U-18 provincials are skipped by Sarah Daniels (Delta), Rebecca Douglas (Vancouver Island), Kaitlyn Hessell (Invermere) and Jaelyn Cotter (Vernon).
Team Brown and Team Connor qualified for the U-18 provincials when they won regional playdowns in 100 Mile House in January.
