ELK POINT – Winning the Elk Point Oilmen’s Bonspiel grand challenge, now called the A Event, is nothing new for Leonard Gadowski, who was part of his first winning team in 1992, and followed that up with wins in 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2016 and 2024 along with seven championships in what are now the Oilmen’s B, C and D events, before winning a close 2025 semi-final over last year’s Oilmen’s B Event winner, Irven Courts and his NOVA Mechanical rink.
That win put Gadowski and the Spring Park Collection of Knights into Saturday’s final against Amyotte Welding, with a semi-final victory over JoReg01, skipped by Justin Dwan, for this year’s championship. The Knights, a rink that for a second year included Curtis Porcina, Brandon Tupper and Roland Joly, collected three points in their first end and another two in the second before Amyotte’s Lee Michaud, Scott Ward, Sean Hovelkamp and Joey Duperron collected singles in the third, fifth, sixth and seventh ends, shrinking the Knights’ lead to two as they went into an eighth end that had fans of both rinks on the edge of their seats, all the way to Gadowski’s final, well-placed rock which gave the Knights their second championship win in two years.
Two three-curler teams competed in the B Final, with Rear Enders Tim Smereka, Mike Bespalko and Jackie Penz, with a win over Tyler Warawa’s Encore Environmental in the semi-final, taking the win over M&M Supply’s Kyle Porcina, Brandon Goertzen and Robbie Tchir, who defeated Cameron Bredin’s Marksmen Vegetation in the semi.
The Michaud rink – Charles Michaud, Dave and Dmitri Storoschuk and Lincoln Michaud - came into the C Event final with a win over Paul Myshaniuk’s Highmark Oilfield Services, and took the win in the shortest of the four finals, defeating Tyson Stafford, Lane Lorenson, Marty Bendixen and Wade Poitras of DK Energy, who had just come from a win over Wes Meger’s DE-Tech Inspect.
This year’s D Event win went to Byron Marin’s Enbridge rink, which included Conrad Pierce, Kyle Winterbottom and Sarah Balash. They came in with a win over Darcy Stafford’s E-Can Shuffle rink to take on Bump Oilfields’ Travis Lindquist, Doug Lindquist, David Yuschyshyn and Tanner Shankoswski, who replaced Doug Bassett in the final, following a semifinal win over Calvin Fisher’s Diablo Oilfield.
A total of 22 rinks took part in the three-day spiel hosted by the Elk Point Curling Club.
