Young rink shows it’s a team to be reckoned with
Junior-age squad beats two former Tankard winners, once while shorthanded
As might be expected, Nathan Young is getting some attention this week as he leads his youthful team into their first-ever Tankard Newfoundland and Labrador men’s curling championship.
After all, the 17-year-old from Torbay is just a week removed from winning a gold medal in mixed doubles at the World Youth Olympics in Switzerland.
But Young has a pretty good supporting cast, and it showed in Monday afternoon’s opening draw of the Tankard.
Young didn’t play in the matchup against veteran Mark Noseworthy; the Gonzaga High School student missed two weeks of classes while in Switzerland, where he also skipped Canada’s mixed team entry in the first half of the Youth Olympics, so he decided to miss the opening draw.
That meant third Sam Follett, second Nathan Locke and lead Ben Stringer, played as a three-man unit against Noseworthy, mostly reducing the sweeping to a one-broom effort.
But with Follett — who had been the Canadian spare in the mixed team at the Youth Olympics — acting as temporary skip, the team posted an 8-2 victory, with Noseworthy, a four-time Tankard champ, conceding after six ends.
Young was back with his teammates in Monday’s evening draw, where they defeated another former Tankard champion skip, 2006 winner Ken Peddigrew by a 9-6 score.
That leaves the Young rink one of three with 2-0 records entering the competition’s second day, when the schedule should work better for the education-conscious teenaged skip. While Monday’s draws were at 12:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., they shift to 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., for the next three days.
Joining Young at 2-0 are rinks skipped by Trent Skanes and 2018 Tankard winner Greg Smith.
Thirteen-time provincial champion Brad Gushue and his rinkmates, back playing for the Tankard after two years in the role of Team Canada and reigning Brier champions, are 1-0 after beating defending N.L. champ Andrew Symonds 8-5 in Monday’s second draw.
Symonds is 1-1, while Colin Thomas is 0-1. Peddigrew, Noseworthy and Dave Thomas of Port aux Basques, who has the only non-st. John’s team in the competition, are 0-2.
Preliminary play in the single-round robin event ends Saturday morning.
The teams owning the top three preliminary records advance to the playoffs, with the first-place team going straight to Sunday’s final and the second- and third-place sides meeting in a semifinal that will determined the other team that will play for the title.
The winners will wear Newfoundland and Labrador’s colours at the 2020 Tim Hortons Brier, beginning Feb. 29 in Kingston, Ont.