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Manitoba's Dunstone as loud and powerful as a locomotive in taking Canadian junior curling title
Stratford, Ontario - Heading into the final of the Canadian Junior Men's Curling Championship, both teams knew there was a cardinal rule that could not be broken: Do not fall behind by a bunch, or you'll have a steep, almost impossible climb.
When you have two teams with the ability to play takeouts the way these Manitoba and Northern Ontario Junior Men's teams can, getting too far back of the tail lights means the front runner can peel out of sight.
That's precisely what happened in the final, won by Manitoba's Matt Dunstone, Colton Lott, Kyle Doering and Rob Gordon, by a score of 11-4, in eight ends.
It was an impressive display by Dunstone and company, taking down Northern Ontario's Team Horgan a few days after the Copper Cliff Curling Club team had defeated Dunstone's Winnipeg crew during the round-robin.
With a 7-2 lead after four ends, the outcome wasn't really in doubt, not with the way the young Manitobans can make rocks disappear in a blink.
Had Northern Ontario kept it close (and they led 2 - nothing after the first end), we would have been in for a dandy game. Each of these teams, while blessed with terrific rock-clearing ability, had also shown, as the week went on, that they were fine with putting lots of granite in play and then attempting to manoeuvre with soft-touch shots. That meant a pretty decent opening end in this game and led to a tremendous second end, maybe the most entertaining end of curling I've seen all year. It's a testament to how far the junior game has come in a few short years. Not so long ago, junior men were primarily interested in playing those crowd-pleasing bomb shots, eschewing the draw game much too often. That is no longer the case.
Dunstone, impressively, showed off all of his skills in that superb second end; Accurate upweight, light touch, and pro-level lung power. With his first stone, he ran a Northern Ontario guard back some fifteen feet, past three other rocks that could have wrecked it, onto his own stone, killing the opposition counter on the button. Manitoba lay two at that point. “That was obviously a huge shot in the game," Dunstone nodded. "That was the turning point in the game, to come back with a three after giving up a tough two in the first end.”
His job wasn't quite done after that runback. Northern Ontario skip Tanner Horgan narrowly missed his own angle run just after Dunstone's, leaving the door open for a big end for Manitoba, but only if Dunstone could show a light touch. With his second, he pulled all the way back to draw weight, not so easy to do after just throwing a bomb. He showed decent touch and incredible bellowing power as he followed sweepers Colton Lott and Rob Gordon down the ice as they leaned into their brooms with all their might. “I like to bring the intensity to the game," Dunstone said of his penchant for bone-rattling hollering. "I like to scare ‘em a bit because sometimes they’re not sweeping as hard as I think they can be," he smirked.
Lott and Gordon dragged it to the four-foot for a big three and a 3-2 lead. “I gave it my all," said Lott. "Didn’t wanna leave that one short. Not one bit." Did Dunstone's paint-peeling exhortations help?
“I’m so focussed on the sweeping," said Lott. "I had no idea he was right behind me.”
The following end proved, really, to be Northern Ontario's undoing. Manitoba played an effective third and forced Horgan into drawing for one. Light and inside, on that attempt, the last stone of the end crashed a guard as Manitoba stole three more. 6-2 at that point and those Manitoba tail lights began to fade.
For Dunstone, it means a second gold medal as a skip at this event, having won in 2013 with a different team in front of him. Manitoba junior men have now won the last four championships in succession, with Braden Calvert taking titles in 2014 and 2015.
"It feels just as good," Dunstone said when asked to compare this win to his first junior championship. "The first one, obviously, was very special. Never really expected it at all. To come around and do it again, the feeling never gets old."
“I’m so proud of the guys. They played so well. And they made my life so easy.”
