By Josh Bell
Two local schools won medals at the OFSAA curling championships – hosted unexpectedly in Ottawa from March 20-23 – and as much as they treasured their prizes, simply getting the chance to compete was big for the Sir Robert Borden girls and the Osgoode Township boys.
After each receiving their medals, all eight teams from across the province gave a special thanks to the organizing committee led by Dwayne Scullion from St. Paul Catholic High School.
When the original intended organizers from Gravenhurst pulled out due to the teachers’ labour conflict with the provincial government, Scullion found ice at public clubs all over town, from Navan to Carp, in the space of a few weeks to save OFSAA curling from cancellation. Several other winter OFSAAs had already been wiped out, including the OFSAA snowboard festival, which the national capital had been slated to host.
“I’m not really sure what the expectations were, especially after being cancelled,” Scullion noted. “There were a lot of people going ‘Oh my God, there’s an OFSAA again!’ after the disappointment of losing it. So it’s just been great.”
Stuart Leslie was especially grateful to see the event come back to life. The skip of Osgoode’s bronze medal-winning rink was one of three Grade 12s on the team, along with lead Chris Fliesser and third Jessica Armstrong (who joined the boys since there wasn’t a girls’ team at her school), plus Grade 11 second Adam Taylor and Grade 9 fifth Sean Armstrong, Jessica’s brother.
“When we first heard that Gravenhurst couldn’t host it, we were really bummed out,” explained Leslie, whose team opened with a loss and then rattled off five wins in a row to reach the semi-finals. “This was the one event, in Grade 12, that we really wanted to do.
“But when we heard that Dwayne might be taking it on, we were all really supportive. Some of the parents stepped up, because it was a ton of work to do, and they did a really great job.”
The Osgoode group had another big thank you for their volunteer coach, Bryan Walsh, who came on board at the last moment so they could enter a team in the national capital league.
It was a similar story for the SRB girls, who gave their coaches – a player’s mother and grandmother – a nice reward for their work by earning the antique-bronze medal for fourth place.
“It just feels awesome,” described Grade 10 skip Melissa Wong, who’d been aiming to reach the quarter-finals along with third Erin Janna, second Mara Ostafichuk and lead Madison Erbach. “We’re really proud we made it this far. We’re just so happy.”
St. Catharines’ Sir Winston Churchill Secondary won the boys’ event, Norwell District girls from Palmerston (north of Guelph) earned gold in their division, and over 150 other athletes got the chance to compete in OFSAA – a potential launching pad towards a bigger stage, or a tool to develop a lifelong connection to a sport.
That was the case for the Nepean High School girls, who didn’t finish as well as they hoped, but were nonetheless enthused by the good-luck message they received from NHS grad Lisa Weagle, who won world championships bronze as a member of Team Homan, which also includes SRB grad Alison Kreviazuk at second.
“It was pretty awesome and really encouraging,” said Nepean lead Rebecca Drolet. “It really gave us a pump up.”
It also made them think about their curling future, she added. Drolet said she “absolutely” wants to continue to curl, and having Weagle as inspiration helps.
“Having someone as good as she is telling us that we have a chance,” Drolet highlighted, “it really makes us think that there’s a possibility for the future.”
—with files from Dan Plouffe