Team Clendenan

Young competitive curlers are very familiar with the OJCT (Ontario Junior Curling Tour) which is a collection of the province’s largest tournaments for curling athletes under 20 years of age. Teams are attracted to competitions recognized by the OJCT more than any other because they have the opportunity to face off against the best in their sport but more importantly to be eligible for tour points that are awarded based on their results from each competition. The points are accumulated throughout the tour season (mid-September to mid-February) and the subsequent provincial ranking is used for qualifying criteria for elite events and in special cases, funding.

The inaugural Coldwater OJCT host club is a new addition to the tour options for Bantam curlers under 16 years of age. Playfully named “ROCKTOBERFEST”, entrants from all over southern Ontario were eager to participate and Team Clendenan was no exception. In a traditional round robin pool format, the purple crew got down to business early and soundly advanced to the playoffs with a 3-0 record against ROBERT (High Park), STEELE (Uxbridge) and WARRINER (Oakville). Maintaining their momentum and embracing the spirit of Zusammen! (tsoo-zamm-in) which means “together” in German, the good guys earned a fourth win in the semi-finals against TITKAI ( Bayview) and finished strong with an early handshake championship win in game 5 against BERNARD ( Elmira ).

The payoff for an undefeated weekend in Coldwater will be a precious handful of OJCT tour points that will go into the Team Clendenan coffers – which incidentally will only be half of the number that would be awarded for a junior age competition in the same circuit. The bonus value of those points, however, occurs as a result of the process of earning them with people who would have your back even if you didn’t win them. For Team Clendenan, they were fortunate enough to become Rocktoberfest champions, win tour points AND deepen a friendship that will be around long after the posted standings. Look out Ottawa, the power of purple is on its way!

Lass uns das nächstes Jahr wiederholen. (Let’s do this again next year!)