By knocking out defending champion Scott Howard in Sunday’s Ontario men’s curling championship final at the Cobourg Community Centre, skip Sam Mooibroek’s rink booked their ticket to this year’s Montana’s Brier.
Mooibroek along with third Ryan Wiebe, second Scott Mitchell and lead Nathan Steele, representing the Whitby Curling Club, went undefeated in five games, including two wins over Howard. The first was in Friday night’s 1 versus 2 Page playoff game and that victory sent Mooibroek directly to the final with Howard needing a semifinal final win Saturday night over Mark Kean.
“We’ve played (Team Howard), I want to say five times this year, I think six, now. It’s been a really good match-up and we had a good feeling we’d end up playing them and it would come down to one game so nice and excited to beat them in the end,” Mooibroek told Today’s Northumberland.
Already up by one after one, Mooibroek stole two in the second when a Howard draw to the button proved to be too heavy. Howard scored a single in the third to get on the board.
In the fourth, Howard was in position to steal one but Mooibroek made a big shot – hitting off one of his own rocks outside the house and into the button – to score three and take a commanding 6-1 lead.
“A bit of a turning point, for sure,” Mooibroek said. “Just a nice exciting moment, for sure.”
Following a blanked fifth end, strong sweeping in the sixth enabled Howard to pick up two and then limited Mooibroek to one in the eighth after a blanked seventh.
Mooibroek clinched an early victory in nine ends, defeating Howard 7-4.
The tournament ran Sunday to Sunday and, by continuing to win, Team Mooibroek only played five games while the final was Howard’s eighth.
“There’s benefits and there’s some disadvantages I would say, but we made sure we practiced every single day including the ones we curled,” Mooibroek said. “We were kind of in a nice routine and never took more than 20 hours off the ice at any point.”
Mooibroek said he takes a relaxed approach to the competition.
“There’s always going to be a lot of intensity so just trying to stay as relaxed as possible is definitely our key to success,” he said.
Team Mooibroek will compete at the Brier from Feb. 28 to March 9 in Kelowna, B.C.
NOTE: This year’s Ontario Curling championships were once again hosted by the West Northumberland Curling Club. During the closing ceremony, a majority of the 186 volunteers were on the ice and were thanked by Linda Laliberte, one of the event organizers.
Author: Pete Fisher
Has been a photojournalist for over 30-years and have been honoured to win numerous awards for photography and writing over the years. Best selling author for the book Highway of Heroes - True Patriot Love
