National champs
Lim rink sweeps to 65-plus title
Now that his work is done, having won the men’s 65-andover curling championship at the 55-plus Canadian Games in Saint John, N.B., Bill Lim and his Prince George Golf and Curling Club teammates are getting their fill of all the best things that come with life in the Maritimes.
They’re stuffing their bellies with lobster and drinking in the scenery, with bit of wine and the odd brew to chase it all down.
It’s not every day you get to celebrate a national championship in any sport and this is the first for Lim and crew, which includes third Owen Mathison, second Bill Davidson and lead Rick Mintz.
They defeated New Brunswick 5-4 in an extra end in the goldmedal game on Friday.
For Lim and his crew, the championship was sweet redemption after they got off to a slow start at the four-day, seven-team event. They lost their opener to Ontario, then finished last later that day in the skills competition, the results of which were used in case a tiebreaker was needed.
Team B.C. recovered with three straight wins, defeating Alberta in an extra end, and they also beat Nova Scotia and Manitoba. Heading into the last day of competition, to qualify for the medal round, B.C. needed New Brunswick to beat Alberta and the host team complied, eliminating Alberta to finish first in the pool at 4-0.
“If Alberta had won we would have been relegated to fourth because of our lack of skill in the skills competition,” laughed Lim, while preparing for a tour of Halifax harbour Wednesday night. “We didn’t do well in that because we played it after losing in an extra end in our first game to Bruce Park of Ontario. We were pretty disappointed to finish dead-last in the skills competition.”
The curling facility in Saint John suffered an ice plant failure a couple weeks before the event and organizers considered moving it 153 kilometres to Moncton, but the plant was repaired sufficiently enough to allow five sheets of ice, instead of eight, and the schedule was reduced to allow competition in all six categories.
In the semifinal, Lim and Team B.C. beat Ontario 7-5.
The final was a low-scoring affair and the teams were tied 4-4 after eight ends. With his second shot in the eighth, Lim made a hit trying for a steal and got the roll he wanted, leaving him with shotrock behind cover. That left New Brunswick skip David Sullivan, a former Brier skip from Manitoba, with just one possible shot – a draw to the button, and he nailed it to force the extra end.
“We tried to keep it clean in the extra end but somehow (Mathison) managed to wick one of their rocks from the top of the house to the back of the four-foot,” said Lim. “He was trying to peel them both, and with (Sullivan’s) first rock he guarded it and I tried to run back to get them both out of there but I could only get the one off the top.
“He drew again to the eight-foot as a guard to protect the one on the four-foot and with my last rock I made a draw to his one to the back four-foot, just clearing that front guard by about an inchand-a-half and nestled in there nicely. I outcounted him by about half a rock.”
Lim said his sweepers blocked his view and he couldn’t see from his position down the rink where his last rock ended up, but he knew it was a winner when Davidson and Mintz jumped for joy to begin the celebration.
The 66-year-old Lim has won the Kelly Cup twice and won the sixteam provincial 65-plus championship at the B.C. Senior Games last summer in Vernon (which qualified him for the New Brunswick national championship). Winning in Saint John tops them all.
“I think this has got to be the top right now, to be able to come to a Canadian championship regardless of the age and compete against teams from across the country, I’m just thrilled, as we all are,” said Lim.
For Lim, his first visit to the East Coast of Canada has been unforgettable and he and his curling crew and their wives are making a holiday of it. The Games drew 2,300 participants in 22 sports.
“The whole scale of these Games was huge,” he said. “Saint John did as a great job of hosting.”