Manitoba Open draws to a close

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This article was published 22/01/2018 (2978 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The last three spots for the upcoming provincial men’s curling championship were sewn up early on the final night of the Manitoba Open.

Arborg’s Kyle Foster, and Merv Satterthwaite and Darryl Friesen, both from St. Vital Curling Club, qualified Monday for the Viterra Championship, slated for Winkler Jan. 30 to Feb. 4.

Satterthwaite beat Foster 6-0 (the teams shook hands after four ends) in the final of the Nott Autocorp Event, but both teams had already earned spots before the first rocks were tossed Monday by virtue of Deer Lodge’s Sean Grassie and Assiniboine Memorial’s Dennis Bohn meeting in the Asham event final — won 8-3 by Grassie.

Both Grassie and Bohn had qualified previously for the provincial championship.

Satterthwaite, 67, will be making his fifth appearance at the provincial championship. His team, as it’s currently constructed, also earned berths in 2004 and 2015. The veteran skip was asked to rate his level of confidence that his team could earn a berth when the Open started Thursday.

“On a scale of one to 10, probably about a three,” said Satterthwaite, whose team also includes Brent Griffin, Ken Armstrong, Mike Zwarycz and Heinz Warkentin. “We always know we have the capability. We know we can play well against a lot of the teams, but playing really well for five, six games is not (easy).”

Satterthwaite went 8-1 — his only loss coming to Bohn.

“We’re not jumping up about it, but we’re pretty ecstatic,” Satterthwaite said. “We’re happy. It’s always a pleasure to go to those things.”

Foster, who went 8-2 at the Open, will be making his seventh trip to the provincials. He also qualified in 2017.

“Hopefully we’ll win a few games (in Winkler),” said Foster, whose team includes Shawn Magnusson of Riverton, Gimli’s Kyle Einarson and Winnipeg’s Justin Reischek. “That’s what we target. We know we’re not going to compete with the (Mike) McEwens and (Reid) Carruthers, but hopefully we can win a couple of games and maybe sneak out a qualifier. That’s our goal every year. We’ve lost a qualifier a couple of times, so it would be nice to get into the playoffs.”

Meanwhile, Friesen’s route to the provincials was clinched when he advanced to the Winnipeg Free Press event semifinals Sunday and the finalists included two teams that had already qualified for Winkler — Elmwood’s Brett Walter and Assiniboine Memorial’s David Bohn. Bohn beat Walter 7-4 in Monday’s final.

Friesen, 45, was thrilled to punch his ticket to Winkler. His only previous provincials experience came in 2009 when he posted a 2-2 record.

“It’ll be fun,” Friesen said. “Pressure isn’t on a team like us. You go there and you have some fun… We’re four guys, just like the next four guys on the sheet. You throw them up and down as best you can and see what happens. We’re club curlers, right? So maybe we’re above-average club curlers. I say we make our shots 70 to 85 per cent of the time. The average club curler is maybe 50 to 75 per cent.

“And the best teams that curl all the time, I think Grassie said this was his 14th bonspiel of the year. So those guys are 80 to 95 per cent is what their shot average is. Any given day, you never know.”

Elsewhere Monday: Cyrille Durand of Heather defeated St. Adophe’s Gilles Morin 7-3 in the Lafarge Construction final; Pembina’s Daniel Birchard beat Andrew Wickman of Fort Rouge 8-5 in the Best Western final; and Tyler Drews of Fort Rouge upended Winkler’s Traci Nickel 8-1 in the Original 16 final.

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