Team ‘Toba tops in curling

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/03/2011 (5603 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Neepawa skip Kelly Robertson and his Manitoba teammates will fly home today as Canadian senior men’s curling champions.

Robertson, making his first ever trip to the senior nationals, defeated Alberta’s Brad Hannah 7-5 in Saturday’s final at Digby, N.S.

“We never trailed and the boys really played solid,” Robertson said within an hour of the victory. “Anytime you can put a team average like that (87 per cent) together, that’s pretty good.

“The steal that we got in (the fifth end) put us up 4-1 at the break and that was big, because then they’ve got to start pressing and what not and they’ve got to watch out they don’t give up a big end. Actually, we were able to peel really well and never let them have much of a chance.

“And then we were up by four coming home and it was more or less elimination.”

The Albertans handed Manitoba its only loss in the weeklong tournament. Robertson finished at 11-1 while Hannah was 8-5 overall.

“We knew that they beat us our first game, so knew we had to have our ‘A’ game and the boys brought it,” said the 54-year-old Robertson, whose rink includes Doug Armour of Souris, Peter Prokopowich of Dauphin and former Brandonite Bob Scales of Winnipeg.

“We had a really good week. With any sport, you have to have a little bit of luck and have the breaks go your way. That happened to us in certain instances and we played really good, too. It was a good team effort.”

Robertson’s rink will represent Canada at the world senior championship in 2012.

“They haven’t announced a spot yet, but we’re going somewhere,” he said.

In the Canadian senior women’s final Saturday, Heidi Hanlon of New Brunswick beat Ontario’s Joyce Potter 8-6.

— The Brandon Sun