The express ride to the Canadian Direct Insurance B.C. Men’s Curling Championship was booking passengers on Friday night, and Neil Dangerfield was the first team to score a ticket.
The first qualifying game of the triple knockout Vancouver Island Playdown was a tense cat-and-mouse affair between Dangerfield and Chris Baier at the Victoria Curling Centre. Every time Dangerfield would go up two or three, Baier would match it. Finally, in the 10th end, Baier ran out of ends. Dangerfield, with third Denis Sutton, second Darren Boden and lead Glen Allen, broke a ninth-end 8-8 tie, scoring three for an 11-8 win.
“That’s what our plan is, to make it tough on the other guy,” Dangerfield said.
With just seven entries in the playdown, the first of two Island berths was on the line on opening day as the teams vied to be among 16 competing at the provincial championship, Feb. 5-9 at Vancouver Curling Club.
For Baier, and his first-year squad of Josh Hozack, Corey Chester, and Andrew Komlodi, that meant winning three straight on Friday, while Dangerfield, who had a first-draw bye, only needed two wins.
Before the game, Dangerfield, whose team has been together since 2008, described the two-win opportunity as “fantastic.”
“You can’t ask for a better setup than that,” said Dangerfield, on the hunt for his fourth straight B.C. appearance, beginning with 2011, when they lost the final to Jim Cotter. “The only way to make it worth your while is to actually win the two games.
“Otherwise you end up with a six- or seven-game qualifying on Sunday.”
The game between Baier and Dangerfield was a tense cat-and-mouse affair. Dangerfield eked his way to a 3-0 lead, thanks to consecutive stolen points, but Baier fought back with a pair in the fourth end, and a steal to lock things at 3-3 by the fifth end break.
In the sixth end, Dangerfield got a couple of rocks buried behind guards and wound up drawing for a crucial three-ender, but Baier came right back with a matching three.
Earlier on Friday, Baier dominated in a 5-1 victory over young Nolan Reid, whose team, with Sanjay Bowry throwing fourth, has already qualified for junior provincials. In the afternoon draw, Baier dispatched Jason Montgomery 10-4, after jump-starting with three in the first end.
“We played well with the lead,” the 26-year-old Baier said about the game against Montgomery. “We had one hiccup there [giving up three in the sixth end].”
For Montgomery, the season has been rough, following knee surgery earlier this fall. He’s calling the game, and throwing lead stones, while Jody Epp is throwing fourth, Miles Craig third, and Will Duggan second.
“It’s getting better,” Montgomery said. “I’ve had to change from toe-sliding to flat-flooted.”
In the other late games, Montgomery edged Jay Tuson 10-9, and Reid handed Juan de Fuca’s Todd Jones, the only team that doesn’t regularly play out of the Victoria Club, his second straight loss. Jones dropped an 8-2 decision to Reid, after losing 10-7 to Montgomery in the morning draw. In an earlier battle of senior teams, Wes Craig beat Tuson 8-7, before losing 8-1 to Dangerfield.
Today’s draws are scheduled for 9 a.m., 2 and 7 p.m., with the B-event winner dropping down to Sunday’s qualifier at 9 a.m., and, if necessary, 2 p.m.
• Curlers are finding the ice conditions good, but slightly different from what they’ve been accustomed to in the past. A burst pipe last Tuesday resulted in the club being shut down for two days, while icemaker Al Sutherland re-flooded the four middle sheets.
The result was ice that still curled, but didn’t quite have the same finish.
• Eight teams have already qualified for the provincials. Olympic Trials runner-up John Morris, with Jim Cotter throwing fourth, was the top B.C. team in Canadian Team Ranking System points, Andrew Bilesky earned a berth as defending champion, and six others put their names in the hat at playdowns last weekend. They include Dean Joanisse, Grant Dezura, and Brent Pierce from the Lower Mainland, Tom Buchy and Trevor Perepolkin from the Kootenays, and Northern B.C. rep Bill Cameron.
