Lac La Biche’ s own Barry Chwedoruk had an exciting couple days playing third for Team Alberta who won the Everest Senior’ s Men’ s Curling Championships in Fredericton last weekend.
The team of Chwedoruk, lead George White, second Dan Holowaychuk and skip Wade White won the 12-team national tournament after going 3-3 in the first round, tying them for second place with Northern Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia.
The team squeaked through to the second round literally by inches.
“We drew for the hammer and we had to shoot for first-closest to the button,” Chwedoruk said. “We got closest.”
But despite barely squeaking through to the second round, he said the team was confident in its game.
“We really had one bad game of six in the round,” he said. “Even in the two games lost there was a bit of bad luck. We were playing pretty good.”
Team Alberta then won the next three games of an eight-team round robin en route to beating Quebec 10-3 in their semifinal and Ontario in a nail biting 7-6 victory in the final that had to be decided in an extra end.
Team Alberta came back down from 4-1 in the fifth end by scoring three in the sixth and then swapping two-point rounds to tie at the end of the eighth and final frame.
But despite Ontario getting the hammer, an errant shot by Ontario skip Howard Rajala gave Team Alberta the gold medal.
Chwedoruk, who is from Lac La Biche and trains at the Lac La Biche Curling Club, has been waiting a long time for a victory like this.
“For 30 years I’ ve been trying,” he said. “I’ ve been in curling a long time.”
A member of the Lac La Biche Curling Club, Chwedoruk had a men’ s team that for many years played against competition from Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia, including taking on curling greats such as four-time world champion Randy Ferbey.
He said he got to know and become friends with his teammates on the provincial senior team through competing against them over the years. Turning 50 provided him with an opportunity to join the senior’ s team that his friends caught on to first.
“When I turned 50 they asked me if I wanted to join the senior team and I did,” he said.
In order to qualify for the national tournament, teams have to play through district and provincial tournaments first. In Chwedoruk’ s case, he and his teammates had to take a second shot this year, as their first shot didn’ t go as they’ d hoped.
“We went undefeated last year before losing in the provincial final,” he said. “We gave it another crack this year.”
The team played 29 games that included northern Alberta qualifiers, provincials in Dawson Creek and the Everest tournament en route to a national championship.
Chwedoruk says he curls about once a week in Lac La Biche while running the land construction company Chekor Contracting. He describes his day-to-day life as “work, work, work.”
He said the ice in Lac La Biche is good training for the fast ice at the big national tournaments.
“The ice at the Bold Center is only about a half-second slower than what we had in Fredericton,” said Chwedoruk. “It’ s good training.”
Team Alberta will become Team Canada next year when they go off to play in the World Curling Championships. The location and exact dates for the world tournament have not been decided.