KAKABEKA FALLS – Fourteen tandems will be battling it out for provincial glory over the next few days at the Kakabeka Falls Curling Club.
The Northern Ontario mixed doubles provincial championship began on Wednesday afternoon and a champion will be crowned on Sunday evening.
Rylie Paul is curling at her home club alongside Owen Weiss of the Port Arthur Curling Centre in what will be their first time playing together.
“I wanted to enter for a couple of reasons,” Paul said. “I wanted to get some practice in before the Under-18 nationals in a couple of weeks and I wanted to play in a provincial at my home club.”
“The sweeping of your own rocks is definitely a challenge, especially without your gripper on,” Weiss added. “It’s a lot of fun though and we’re hoping to just have a fun time.”
The majority of the field comes from the region. Kakabeka Falls and Fort William Curling are represented, along with squads from Terrace Bay Curling and Curl Fort Frances.
Chris Bowman and his sister Jamie of the North Bay Granite Club made the longest trek to the provincials.
“We’ve been playing together in mixed doubles for about five years and I like it a lot,” Chris Bowman said.
“It’s a fast game and it’s a new take on curling. It’s a lot of fun for me.”
The most recent former champion in the field is Sudbury’s Amanda Gates. She captured the Northern Ontario title with Trevor Bonot in 2018.
Gates, who won a silver medal with Bonot at the 2022 Canadian Mixed Curling Championships, is teaming up with Dustin Montpellier this weekend.
“I think mixed doubles is really growing in Northern Ontario, especially with a lot of younger teams coming in,” Gates said.
“The 14 teams that are here I think is the most that I’ve seen at the provincials that I’ve been at. It’s tough to find three people to commit to a whole season so mixed doubles gives you that chance to find that one person and go for it.”
In addition to only having two players on a team, only six rocks are thrown in each of the eight ends and rocks are already in the house, which leads to higher-scoring action.
“That always gets a reaction from people when they see a mixed doubles game for the first time and there’s rocks in play right away,” Jamie Bowman said. “For me as a player, that makes things a lot more interesting.”
“If you are coming out this week, you definitely want to be here early with how fast the game is, especially with the strategy,” Gates added.
The opening ceremonies take place at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday with the second draw in the triple knockout event getting underway at 7:30 p.m.
The championship contest takes place at 4 p.m. Sunday. The winner will represent Northern Ontario at the national event in Summerside, P.E.I. next month.
A full schedule and scores can be found on the Northern Ontario Curling Association’s website.
