TOUGH ACTS to follow

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Tim Smith / Brandon Sun Skip Cole Peters throws a rock during his team�s win over Carter Watkins� Swan River rink at the junior provincial curling championships in Brandon on Friday. (TIM SMITH/BRANDON SUN)

Six letters are spread out, left to right, across a jacket on a young man's back.

They spell the name P-E-T-E-R-S but they represent so much more to anybody who has slid from the hack or simply watched curling in this province.

And so while Cole Peters might just be a regular 16-year-old kid at Steinbach Christian High School, he understands better than anyone what that family legacy means. After all, his dad, Wilf, was a good curler who was part of a Manitoba mixed champion in 1982, his uncle is Vic Peters, the three-time Manitoba and one-time Canadian champ. And his cousins are Daley Peters -- a back-to-back Manitoba junior champion -- and Liz Peters, who has won a junior title of her own.

That's a whole pile of expectations to carry around in a dude's broom bag.

"You know what, I like it," said Peters Friday, during a break in Day 2 action at the 2013 Canola Junior Curling Championships at the Brandon Curling Club. "It gives me inspiration to follow in their footsteps.

"I have a lot of pride holding this name. To see what my uncle Vic and Daley have done, that gives me motivation to try and match what they've done."

Peters is doing the family name proud through the start of the provincials, racking up two wins on Friday -- 8-5 over Carter Watkins of Swan River and 5-3 over Deer Lodge's Randy Greig -- to push his record to 4-0.

So far, he and his West St. Paul team of third Connor McIntyre, second Nicholas Good and lead Robbie Gordon have adopted a pretty good approach to the event -- their second provincial championship as a team -- and one that came, in part, after a quick chat with Vic and Daley.

"We don't talk much, but during family gatherings they're always asking how the team is doing," said Cole. "The one thing they both told me was this can be a long week and to try not to get too ahead of ourselves. Hearing that helped a lot.

"But we feel like we have some experience now. We know what to expect from these kind of games. When we're on, we feel like can compete with anybody. Our expectation is to make it to the playoffs and see where it goes from there."

Most of all, though, it seems Peters & Co. have benefited from the youngster's personality -- one which would seem very familiar to anybody who watched his uncle during his dominant run in the 1990s. Remember, it was at the 1997 Brier when Vic Peters won the Ross Harstone Trophy as "the curler with who best represents sportsmanship, observance of the rules, exemplary conduct and curling ability."

"I'm a pretty laid-back guy," Peters said. "I like to have fun out there. Some people are just too serious. I'm not like that. I like to smile and make jokes out there. But when push comes to shove I'll bear down and get serious. I don't want it to sound like I'm not serious, I just think having fun out there is a big part of the game. If you're not having fun, why are you curling, right?

"But I will say this," Peters added, "I don't like losing."

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @WFPEdTait

Day 2 results on c8

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 5, 2013 $sourceSection0