Ryan first Manitoba curler to three-peat at junior men’s championship

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This article was published 07/01/2019 (2808 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

J.T. Ryan became the first skip in Manitoba curling history to win three consecutive provincial junior men’s championships Monday night.

Ryan and his Assiniboine Memorial squad of third Jacques Gauthier, second Jordan Peters and lead Cole Chandler proved to be ruthlessly efficient throughout the event, winning nine straight games, including a 10-1 thumping of St. Vital’s Jordon McDonald in the final at the Heather.

The teams shook hands after the top-seeded Ryan counted four in the sixth end. The 21-year-old Winnipegger will now take his team to the Canadian junior championship, which will be held in Prince Albert, Sask., Jan. 19-27.

“None of us were nervous,” said Ryan, who advanced to the final by beating Elmwood’s Brett Walter 8-6 in the 1 vs. 2 Page playoff game earlier in the day. “We just went out and did what we’ve been doing all week. We didn’t change our game plan because we were more nervous. We wanted to blank the first end and go for them in two and that worked out for us today.

“It was a real good character builder for us. We’ve had an up-and-down year, so to come out and play this way all week was great and I think it just really shows the depth of the field in Manitoba because some of our best games were against the lower seeds here.”

The loss was hardly discouraging for the 15-year-old McDonald, whose fifth-seeded foursome includes third Jaedon Neuert and lead Alexandre Fontaine, a pair of 16-year-olds, and 15-year-old second Braxton Kuntz.

That youthful crew exceeded their own expectations by going 5-2 in the round robin before beating Brandon’s Brayden Payette 9-3 in a Sunday tiebreaker, and then posting a 7-4 win over St. Vital’s Ryan Wiebe in the 3 vs. 4 playoff before a 8-6 semifinal triumph over Elmwood’s Brett Walter on Monday.

“We’re really proud ourselves,” said McDonald. “This is our first provincial and to make it to the final is really great for us. We have five more years. To lose the final isn’t that bad of an experience.”

McDonald found trouble early against Ryan, going down 3-0 after two ends.

“I think we went wrong in the second end,” said McDonald. “I think our game plan was just to try to keep it close and clean it and we had an unfortunate pick on the lead’s second stone… from there it just went downhill. Because they were allowed to go around it — it was hard to play aggressive against them because they would really make us pay if we made one little mistake.”

Ryan was duly impressed with his opponents.

“It was a lot closer than what the score played,” said Ryan. “We got a couple of lucky breaks and capitalized on it but that team, they’re only 15… I was nowhere close to being that good at 15, so this is their first final — first of many.”

Ryan, who lost a tiebreaker at the national championship two years ago and was ousted in the semifinals last year, was asked what he had learned from his previous trips to the big dance.

“It sucks losing, that’s what I learned,” said Ryan with a smile. “No, just that it’s a long week and to stay patient. Last year when we lost the semis, before that we had chance to win a game and get a berth in the semis and we lost it. We went back out half and hour later and won our tiebreaker. It’s the same as this — no matter what happens… you’ve gotta keep it calm and keep going.”

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @sawa14