Jacked up and ready for the Canadian Senior Men's Championships
By Bruce Fuhr
The BC Senior Men’s Champs are ready to reload as the rink begins quest for the top prize at the Canadian Senior Men’s Curling Championships beginning Monday in Digby, Nova Scotia.
The rink, consisting of Kelowna curlers skip Bob Ursel and third Dave Stephenson along with second Don Freschi of Trail and lead Fred Thomson of Nelson qualified for the Canadian Championships after dominating the BC Championships last month in Richmond.
“We’re really excited,” said Nelson’s Fred Thomson prior to leaving Saturday for the Maritimes.
“We played really well in Richmond and if we continue to play like that I like our chances at the Canadians and going for to the Worlds.”
Team BC opens the Championships seeded seventh and is slotted into Pool B with Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador and Nunavut.
First up Monday is Jeff Thomas from Newfoundland and Labrador at 12:30 p.m. EDT before Ursel and Company takes to the ice to meet Quebec’s Richard Faguy in the evening draw at 7:30 p.m.
“We would have liked to have played the next day,” Thomson said when asked about the team’s — running on all cylinders performance — at Richmond, where foursome suffered on only one loss during the round robin before hammering defending champion Wes Craig 7-2 in the final.
“Since we put this team together we’ve been on quite a remarkable run . . . we’re 28-1 this year,” Thomson added.
“We’ve all been throwing a lot of rocks since Richmond and have a lot of experience playing at this level. Hopefully we can pick it up as soon as we get back to the ice (in Digby).”
Playing at the Canadians, Thomson realizes the competition will be that much better than Richmond.
Looking at the rinks that have qualified, he sees a ton of Brier and Canadian experience on the opposing teams.
“It’s interesting looking at the field that is here, most of the rinks have at least one player who has played at the Brier,” Thomson explained.
Having said that, Thomson said BC is included in that assessment.
“Both Don (Freschi) and I have been to the Brier along with Bob (Ursel) who even beat Dave (Stephenson) to with the Canadian Juniors when he curled for Manitoba,” Thomson said.
The field is broken into two seven-team pools. Teams play a preliminary round from Monday to Wednesday with the top four teams qualify for the Championship draw to seed for the Playoffs.
The Semi Final is set for Saturday at 9 a.m. with the Final going at 3 p.m.
These Championships combine the Men’s and Women’s rinks.
The Ursel Rink will be have a solid crowd of supporters as the Women’s BC Champs also are from Kelowna, with skip Diane Foster, third Leanne Ursel, second Cindy Curtain and lead Sherry Heath carrying the provincial BC colours.
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