The Juniors Were Alright

It was a truly memorable week.

To watch 12 curlers, all of them just one month removed from competing at the Provincial Junior Championship in Rivers, play so well on the arena ice and under the bright lights of the 2016 Viterra Championship at the Selkirk Recreation Complex.

What a spectacular performance.

Matt Dunstone, Colton Lott, Kyle Doering and Rob Gordon - the newly crowned Canadian Junior champions – recorded a 7-3 record and gave Mike McEwen all he could handle in the final on Sunday.

Hayden Forrester, Brennan Sampson, Brett MacDonald and Cole Chandler lost their opening game 12-1 to Scott Ramsay and then defeated Ray Baker of Dauphin, Randy Neufeld of La Salle and Jared Kolamaya of Stonewall before losing to 2015 provincial men's champion Reid Carruthers in a “B” side qualifier.

Jordan Peters threw fourth rocks and Graeme Bergman played second for Lorne Hamblin's Morris Curling Club team that lost a pair of games on day one and were eliminated early.

But it was a very special Viterra Championship for the Peters family.

Three generations of the family were on that Hamblin team in Selkirk.

Jordan's dad Brian threw third stones and grandfather Brian was the team's fifth.

Brian senior did get on the ice as he played a couple of ends last Friday night in game two.

Finally Devon Wiebe of Morden and Brett Moxham of Portage played front end for Randy Neufeld of La Salle.

The Neufeld foursome, which included Brett's father Dean, won their opener over Mark Lukowich and then lost back-to-back games to Reid Carruthers and Hayden Forrester.

Wiebe, who along with Moxham lost a tie-breaker at the provincial juniors, said getting an opportunity to play against the 2015 men's champions was a thrill.

“It was exciting,” Wiebe said. “Reid didn't miss a single shot. We expected that. It was just cool to play them – playing one of the top teams is a great experience seeing how they communicate and stuff.”

Remember the names.

Dunstone, Lott, Doering, Gordon, Forrester, Sampson, MacDonald, Chadler, Peters, Bergman, Wiebe & Moxham.

They are the fresh new faces of the Provincial Men's Curling Championship.

And they're going to be around for a long, long time.