RR curlers off to Nationals

By Heather Latter
Staff writer

It was an exciting day at the Fort Frances Curling Club on Sunday as two local teams competed for top honours in the 49th annual Northern Ontario Fire Fighters Curling Championships.
The event, hosted by the Alberton firefighters, saw the Mitchell Seguin rink from Dawson (with Bert Seguin, Claude Seguin, and Mark Jodoin) battling last year’s champions, the Tim Nordin rink of Rainy River (with Dale Morrison, Dave Seguin, and Dale Ossachuk).
But the 2007 champs prevailed against the Seguin rink, earning them the right to represent Northern Ontario at the nationals Mar. 26 to Apr. 4 in Richmond, B.C.
“It’s quite surprising,” stressed Nordin after his rink’s final win. “There are a lot of good teams here, so it was tough to repeat.
“It was a shock to both of us that we ended up playing each other in the finals and it was a thrill to play against them,” he added, citing the Seguin rink represented their sister fire department.
Not only that, but there was also a family connection between the two teams with Dave Seguin being the father of Mitchell Seguin from the opposing team.
With the nationals held in Thunder Bay in 2007, Nordin noted it’s much more exciting to know they will be traveling to B.C. this year.
“They’re all new teams competing this year,” he said, citing he recently had checked the website to see who had already qualified. “But I think we’ll do alright . . . We had a few bumps last year, but we came back.”
The Nordin rink ended the 2007 nationals in fifth place with six wins and four losses, after losing a tie breaker match.
He indicated with several bonspiels coming up in the next few weeks, his team will get some more practice in in time for the nationals.
Ken Kurz, director of the NOFFCA, noted the provincial championships went very well throughout the past weekend.
“Alberton and Fort Frances put on a good hosting,” he stressed. “They had to bid on it and go through a lot of work to have everything ready.”
He said the last time the provincials were held in Fort Frances was in 1995.
“It’s a really good facility . . . and everyone had fun getting together,” he expressed. “It was a good time and there was good participation.”
There were 23 teams in all competing for the chance to represent Northern Ontario in B.C. with local teams also from Alberton and Devlin.
The 2009 provincials will be held in Sioux Lookout.