THUNDER BAY – Last year Dylan Johnston started the Northern Ontario men’s curling championship with a pair of losses.
What a difference a year makes.
Johnston stole two in the ninth to pull out a 6-5 win over Sudbury’s Chris Giblota in the opening draw on Wednesday afternoon his home rink, the Fort William Curling Club, then knocked off Thunder Bay’s Bryan Burgess 7-4 in the nightcap to sit at 2-0 after Day 1.
That leaves Johnston in a two-way tie atop the standings with prohibitive favourite and six-time champion Brad Jacobs, who rolled to a pair of easy wins over New Liskeard’s Ryan Sayer and Sudbury’s Jordan Chandler.
“It feels really good,” said Johnston, whose team includes his brother Cody, Travis Showalter and Mike Badiuk.
“It was rough last year, but we’re right where we want to be now.”
While it wasn’t a perfect day of shooting, Johnston said they did enough to pull out a pair of wins. The difference against Burgess was a huge fifth.
“We got three, went up by two and that was the big turning point in the game.”
Johnston, who on Thursday will take on Chandler in Draw 3, picked out Burgess’ final stone in the 10th to put the match away, scoring two for the three-point victory.
Burgess, despite the loss, escaped opening day with a 1-1 record, earlier edging nine-time Northern Ontario champion Al Hackner 7-4.
Hackner (1-1), seeking his first Brier appearance as a skip since 2001, struggled early in both his matches, but put an exclamation point on his second game, scoring five in the ninth to down Glibota 10-5.
“Even the game we lost earlier, the second half of that game we thought we played pretty well and put some pressure on them and didn’t quite put enough. But we still came out and made a lot of pretty nice shots,” Hackner said.
“And then in this game we got off to a slow start, but fortunately with some good shots and some uncharacteristic misses out of them, they gave us some points there. And you’ve always got to get lucky too.”
Glibota (0-2) led 4-2 through five ends, but gave up a deuce that could have been three to Hackner in the sixth. Glibota jammed on his final stone in the seventh, giving up a steal, then flashed on a double takeout attempt in the ninth and sailed through the house on his final stone facing a quartet of opposition stones in the rings.
Jacobs and teammates E.J. Harnden, Ryan Harnden and Ryan Fry were on cruise control all day.
The reigning Olympic gold medalist led his team to a 7-2 over Sayer in the opening draw, shaking hands after eight ends, then needed only six ends to put away Chandler 7-1.
“Anytime it’s this early in any bonspiel or play-down event, we’re just trying to do our best as a team to get a good handle on the ice,” Jacobs said.
“It’s been a little bit of a struggle, we’re not playing our best at the moment. But that’s kind of to be expected as we go through this learning process.”
Jacobs takes on Glibota in the afternoon draw and will battle Burgess on Thursday night, while Hackner will play Sayer and Chandler on Day 2.
