THUNDER BAY – Ten years ago, Mike McCarville earned a spot at the Brier, and at the time, thought it was the first of many to come.
Re-enter Brad Jacobs, the four-time Northern Ontario champion, who in 2014 skipped the Northern Ontario playdowns to focus on the Olympic Games, despite being the reigning national men’s curling champion.
Jacobs returned to the playdown circuit in 2015 and proceeded to win six straight titles before COVID-19 wiped out the 2021 tankard, then again in 2022.
“To tell you the truth, when I went 10 years ago, I thought this is going to happen again and the years start ticking by and 10 years goes by. Honestly, when this team came together a couple of years ago, I said, we’re pretty good,” said McCarville, the third on Trevor Bonot’s team that earned a spot at this year’s Montana’s Brier with a win over defending Northern Ontario champion Tanner Horgan of Sudbury, needing a measurement in the 10th end to capture the provincial title late last month in Little Current, Ont.
“Especially after our run last year and then this year we got better and better and this year I really believed we could get back.”
Coached by the great Al Hackner, a two-time Brier and world champion in his own right, the Bonot rink also includes a formidable front end, with lead Kurtis Byrd and second Jordan Potts, whose wife Sarah has eight Scotties Tournament of Hearts appearances, curling with McCarville’s wife Krista, a four-time medallist at the Scotties.
For Potts, it’s his first taste of a national championship. It’s the thrill of a lifetime, he said.
“Sarah’s been there so many times and I see how much it means to her and her team. For us it means the world because we’ve seen how special it is. We’ve put in the work and we just want to go make Thunder Bay proud and see what we can do,” Potts said on Tuesday night, at a sendoff party for the team at Fort William Curling Club.
The key to success is winning the games against teams ranked below them and being competitive in the games against the higher ranked teams.
“If we sneak out a win against one of the really top teams, then we’re in a good spot,” Potts said. “If we win what we know we can win, and we win the one that’s on the fence, then we’re good to go.”
Bonot, 38, said it’s finally sinking in that he’s going to the Brier.
The former Canadian mixed champion has waited a couple of decades to realize the dream of playing in the national men’s curling championship.
But he’s not satisfied just being there.
“It’s a lifelong dream for all of us, for sure. Mike’s been there before, but getting back is pretty special for him. Our expectation going in is we want to play well,” Bonot said.
“We know that if we can play our best, we can give teams really good games and win a few. So, with that, we have to start as strong as we can, not get too distracted by the big lights and the fans and everything that’s going around us, and just play like we can. Then with that I think we can attain our goals.”
Team Bonot opens the Bier in Regina on Saturday against James Grattan’s New Brunswick rink at 2 p.m.
They’ll take on Newfoundland and Labrador, skipped by Andrew Symonds, and Reid Carruthers’s Manitoba foursome, a team that includes Jacobs. Alberta’s Brendan Bottcher, Ontario’s Scott Howard, B.C.’s Catlin Schneider, Manitoba’s Matt Dunstone and Yukon’s Thomas Scoffin are also in Pool A alongside Northern Ontario.
