LITTLE CURRENT, Ont. – It took a photo finish, but Trevor Bonot is headed to his first Brier.
Tanner Horgan’s final shot in Sunday’s Northern Ontario Men’s Curling Championship final rolled an inch or two too far, trying to remove Bonot’s shot stone in the 10th end, and the Thunder Bay skip watched in disbelief as he stole one to eke out a 7-5 win at the NEMI Recreation Centre in Little Current, Ont.
It was a stressful couple of seconds for Bonot, lead Kurtis Byrd, second Jordan Potts and third Mike McCarville, who was part of the last Thunder Bay rink to represent Northern Ontario at the Brier 10 years ago.
“it’s hard to believe or put into words, even,” said Bonot, who won the 2017 Canadian Mixed Curling Championship.
“It’s unreal. I’ve played a lot of finals over the years, but this was right up there with some of the big ones and very nerve-wracking, that’s for sure. Once we got that gift of the three points it was pretty hard to defend.”
The points came in the second end, when Horgan flashed on his final stone, facing three Bonot rocks in the ring.
Still, he got two back in the third and then stole singles in the sixth and seventh to take a 5-4 lead.
Bonot worked his magic in the eighth to put up a deuce and jump back in front 6-5, setting up the 10th-end dramatics after the two teams blanked the ninth.
He said he took some advice from coach Al Hackner, the former two-time world champion, whose name is now on the championship trophy.
“He said, ‘Slow it down.’ You could feel our energy get a little on edge. He just gave us a reminder to slow it down and play it like we can. I took an extra breath in the hack and it really helped,” Bonot said.
McCarville, whose wife Krista captured the women’s title on the same sheet a few hours earlier, said it made all worthwhile, the endless hours of practice and play.
“This is awesome. This team works so hard and we put the time and effort in all year. We played a few more events and it was all for this,” McCarville said. “It was all to get into this game and play well We knew we had to play good against a team like Horgan. It means everything.”
Getting the early lead, then losing it was just par for the course, he added.
“That’s the thing with this game. A ten-end game we knew that early lead was really miniscule, and they were going to battle all game. With the five-rock rule and stuff, you can’t help but get rocks in play. It was just a matter of little angles here and there.
“They had us on the ropes a few times and we got out there a couple of times unscathed. That one deuce, it could have been worse, and just to make (Tanner) make a really good one on his last shot is what we planned on doing in that last end and we got away with it.”
The Brier will open on March 1 in Regina.
