Team Calvert getting last laugh at Viterra Championship

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This article was published 10/02/2023 (1206 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Rob Gordon was in unfamiliar territory on Day 2 of the Manitoba men’s curling provincials in Neepawa.

With Braden Calvert’s third Kyle Kurz tied up with school and unable to play Thursday, Gordon, the team’s lead, was the one standing in the house holding the broom for the skip.

Holding the broom in right place wasn’t the problem, it was the standing part.

“I went to sweep a rock out and my foot went out from under me and I turned over and fell on my back and the rest is history,” said Gordon on Friday. “The video has over 13,000 views on Twitter right now. It’s good that people can get a good laugh out of it.”

Fortunately, Gordon wasn’t injured and was able to quickly dust himself off. They also won the game — a 10-3 victory over Tanner Lott.

Gordon returned to his traditional role Friday as Kurz was back with the group.

“All you gotta do is put a lead in the house for a little while doing a third’s job and you can get some good laughs out of it,” joked Calvert.

No one’s laughing at the team’s play this week as Calvert’s Fort Rouge rink featuring Kurz, second Ian McMillan and Gordon cemented its place in the final eight after outlasting No. 4 seed Corey Chambers 6-4 in Friday morning’s draw. Calvert started the week by taking down Grant Shewfelt 9-4.

Calvert, 27, took the ice against Beausejour’s Justin Richter — whose lone loss was a 5-4 result to No. 1-ranked Matt Dunstone on Wednesday — late Friday in playoff round action.

Calvert, who’s ranked fifth this week and currently No. 40 in the Canadian Team Ranking System, only played six events this season and qualified in three but didn’t reach any finals.

“There’s a lot going on with everyone’s lives outside of curling, so we decided to just play a little bit lighter schedule this year and try and peak for this one event. So far, we’ve been playing well,” said Gordon

At last year’s provincials in Selkirk, they were among the final eight, but failed to make it to the page playoff after one-point losses to Mike McEwen and Ryan Wiebe. Calvert’s best result came at his first Viterra back in 2015 in Brandon — the same year he won the world junior championships. Calvert and Kurz, playing with Lucas Van Den Bosch and Brendan Wilson at the time, were one of the final four teams before bowing out to Jeff Stoughton.

It was an incredible feat for a team still in the junior ranks.

“We were pretty young and kind of maybe oblivious to how hard the event really was. We kind of just got on a roll and made it to the final four and had a lot of fun along the way in front of a home crowd,” said Calvert, a Brandon native and cattle farmer who now lives in nearby Carberry.

“It was a really cool moment and I think not being back to the final four since kind of shows how hard it is to make it there in Manitoba.”

Despite not making it back since, Calvert isn’t discouraged.

“Honestly, it kind of just comes down to the wrong side of an inch in a couple games. You look at last year we had a really tight game against McEwen and probably deserved to win that one and advance to the 1-1 (page playoff). You can even go further back and we had a rock pick against (Jason) Gunnlaugson in a game to get to the 1-1 game. We had a draw to take the lead or tie the game and it picked and it gave up a steal,” said Calvert.

“There’s just been a couple bad breaks along the way. We know we’ve been playing well enough, we just haven’t caught that break. We don’t seem to let it affect us too much. We just know we have to keep working harder and harder to earn our breaks, I guess.”

Gordon and McMillan joined forces with Calvert and Kurz in 2018. Their highest CTRS ranking came in 2018-19 and 2019-20 when they reached No. 12. While most teams made changes this past offseason with 2023 marking the beginning of a new quadrennial, Calvert and Co. remained intact. The group believes a trip to the Brier is still a possibility

“I think if we can get on a roll this week, we can win it and that’s our main goal right now,” said Calvert.

taylor.allen@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @TaylorAllen31