With the New Year, our Junior curling program’s calendar became filled with bonspiels, OCA events and extra practices for our competitive teams, and it has been a very busy January for our coaching staff.
Over the Christmas holiday break, Team Anika Molenaar entered the annual Toronto Curling Association bonspiel and gained some valuable experience curling in a competitive event. Ice conditions at the Oshawa Curling Club, where the bantam division of the TCA bonspiel was held, proved very challenging due to the recently-flooded ice surface. Coach Marc Bernard was pleased with the girls’ performance which they used as a tune-up for the OCA bantam competition coming up in January.
The second weekend of January was the beginning of OCA bantam zone playdowns and this year Elmira’s Junior program fielded three bantam rinks. Team Molenaar, with Anika Molenaar at skip, Kate Martin at third, Veronica Bernard at second, and Natalie Bean at lead and coached by Marc Bernard, entered the Zone 12 competition held at the Ayr Curling Club. Team Andrew Paulley, with Andrew at skip, Sam Domaratzki at third, Ryan Paulley at second, and Tony Domzella at lead, coached by Glenn Paulley, entered the Zone 12 boys’ competition, also held at Ayr. In addition to those two rinks, Team Erica Poluck entered the OCA bantam girls’ zone competition in Zone 14 out of the Mount Forest Curling Club. Erica, with Emma McKenzie at third, sister Alison at second, and lead Aryanna Fegan arranged to have Scott Lindhorst of Elora’s junior program to coach them in their competition, which was held at the Palmerston Curling Club. Our heartfelt thanks to Scott for volunteering to lead this team and permit the girls to play.
All three teams represented Elmira extremely well. Team Molenaar met their goal of being competitive in their Zone 12 competition, finishing with a 2-2 record. Anika’s rink just missed qualifying for Regionals, as both B-side finalists would move on, but unfortunately Anika and her foursome lost their B-side semi-final by a single point. Similarly, Team Paulley just fell short of qualifying for Regional play, winning their first game against Bauman from K-W Granite but losing to the same rink in the B-side final. Team Poluck, however, won their B-side final in Palmerston and qualified for Regional play the following weekend in Paris. At Regions the girls proved competitive against the older teams playing in Paris, losing both of their games on the Saturday but putting in their best effort on the ice. I know I speak for the entire coaching staff when I say that we are tremendously proud of all three teams.
This past weekend (January 26), three Elmira rinks were to play in Brampton at their annual Junior bonspiel but with the atrocious driving conditions only three players from one of the Little Rock teams made it to Brampton – Connor Stone, Linden Jorna and Thomas Norcott. The boys played extremely well and finished third in the Little Rock event.
Coming up, the OCA Bantam Mixed competition begins with Zone 12 play the weekend of February 21-23 in Fergus, and three mixed teams will represent Elmira, a club record. Natalie Bean will lead her young rink with third Thomas Kraemer, second Veronica Bernard and lead Kyle Henry, coached by Marc Bernard. Emma McKenzie will skip her team consisting of Andrew Paulley at third stone, Erica Poluck at second, and Ryan Paulley at lead, coached by Julie Poluck. Finally, Alison Poluck will skip her rink with Sam Domaratzki at third, Morgan Hanley at second, and Quentin Mayer at lead, coached by Glenn Paulley. All of the teams are looking forward to an exciting weekend of play in Fergus and the rinks will be having extra practices over the next two weeks in preparation.
Finally, on February 8 Elmira hosts our annual Junior bonspiel with both Little Rock and bantam draws. The bantam draw, which will compete for the Ted Starling trophy, is full with participating teams from Elmira, K-W Granite, Oakville, Milton, London and Fergus. Our Little Rock draw, which will compete for the Norm Clement trophy, will feature teams from Elmira, Milton, Fergus, K-W Granite and Palmerston – two spots are still available.