With a winning record of 5 wins and 3 losses at the junior curling provincial finals last month, local curler Cole Lewis is pretty happy coming home from his first provincial tournament.
“It certainly felt pretty wicked,” said Lewis.
“Just going in to it we were looking to you know win a couple games and go with the flow and if it didn’t work out it didn’t work out,” he said.
Although they were a little nervous to start the tournament, Lewis said that he and his teammates were able to shake off the jitters and play their game.
“The whole team…just brought ourselves together and we got used to the atmosphere and we started curling a lot better,” he said.
Despite the nerves, Lewis’s team managed to start the tournament with a five and zero record.
This is especially impressive when one considers that Lewis, who is 17, and his juvenile curling rink were competing up a division in the 21 and under junior provincials.
“It was a great experience and coming out with a winning record just was a total bonus,” said Lewis.
“It was a fantastic experience,” he said.
As an added bonus to their first junior tournament, Lewis said that they were the only team to defeat the Karsten Sturmay rink who went on to be the provincial champions.
“Our highlight of the entire week was winning against Karsten Sturmay rink,” he said.
“It was a close game all the way through but we ended up beating them and they’re now the best team in the province,” said Lewis.
“It was really nice to be able to beat them,” he said.
With Junior provincials behind them, Lewis and his team mates are now focused on earning a spot at and winning the juvenile provincial title.
“We have certainly our mind set on winning it because we know we can for sure,” he said.
Lewis expects that the experience at juniors will help them be successful at the juvenile level.
Off the ice, Lewis said that the best part of the experience was the opening ceremonies.
All the teams were escorted onto the ice with bagpipes playing and a volunteer youth holding up a banner with the team name on it.
“That was really cool,” he said.
