By Dan Plouffe
The final rock delivered at the Canadian Under-18 Curling Championships was about as storybook as you could have scripted it.
The hometown team had one last chance to achieve their goal of making it on the podium on Saturday night at the RA Centre. Make the shot and they win, miss and they lose.
The classification matches had all concluded and Manitoba had handled Quebec in a gold medal match that wasn’t terribly close.
The only rinks left on the ice were from Nova Scotia and the local RCMP Curling Club, who’d been locked in a tight battle for the final podium place.
The teams had exchanged nothing but singles through the first six ends until Ontario skip Ava Acres missed a hit with her last shot of the seventh to give up the first deuce of the match.
But lead Mya Sharpe, second Isabella McLean and third Aila Thompson setup the stones beautifully to provide another chance in the final end.
Down two with the hammer, Team Acres had shot rock as well as third shot, but Nova Scotia was second. Acres had a decent view of the rock she had to remove from the hack, and if she could stick her stone in place, the bronze medal was hers.
The stadium crowd was hushed, the full attention on the only match left on the five-sheet surface, with the result hanging in Acres’ hands.
“That could be a very difficult moment,” underlined Team Acres coach Gord Butler, “but they all excelled and rose to the challenge. They threw that shot perfectly, they called it perfectly, they swept it perfectly. It was a complete team shot for the win.”
Despite the magnitude of the moment and the miss an end earlier, the team said they had no doubt Acres would come through.
“I knew she could do it,” Thompson indicated. “It’s a lot of stress on the skipper, so we were all trying to bring her up the whole end. And then calling line on that last one, I knew she had it.”
The previous evening, Team Acres “really didn’t find our groove” in a “rough” 8-1 semi-final defeat to Quebec, recounted Butler, but there was no sign of a lingering letdown in the bronze medal match.
Now in their third season together, the members of Team Acres were smiling and joking with each other throughout, and even laughing hysterically when Thompson got a little too intense on her sweeping in the last end and took a little tumble (no harm done to the rocks or the curler). Having fun was a key objective for the team Saturday.
“We’re definitely very good at regrouping, bringing our spirits up and not dwelling on a loss. We focus on what we need to do better in the next game and I think we really did that this time,” Acres highlighted. “We get along so well as a team. We weren’t just doing it for ourselves. We’re doing it for each other. And it was our goal to get a medal at nationals, so it’s awfully special.”
Sharpe said “you could really feel the emotion” when the team came together and embraced after they’d realized their goal, cheered on by “all of our parents and families” and supporters for the home team.
“Hugging my teammates at the end after that final shot – I think I’ll definitely remember that forever,” echoed McLean. “That was a big moment – really, really exciting.”
‘Sky’s the limit’ for Team Acres, coach says
The bronze was Team Acres’ first national medal win. Skipped by her older sister Emma in 2022, Acres missed the playoff round with a 3-3 record in their Canadian U18 championships debut. Team Acres missed out on last year’s nationals by one place at the provincial qualifier, but then earned the chance to represent Ontario the PEI 2023 Canada Winter Games, where they placed fifth.
Team Acres lost their first chance to qualify for the 2024 nationals to Team Vivier of the Ottawa Hunt Club (who wound up suffering their first defeat of the Canadians to Quebec in the quarter-finals). But Team Acres cashed in on their last chance with a victory in the match that decided the second Ontario entry, played on their home RCMP ice at provincials.
Butler said the team has gained a pile of valuable experience throughout it all.
“I think they need to go through the ups and downs of a competition like this against the best in Canada to really appreciate the effort and commitment they have to put into it if they want to be the best,” he noted. “The girls showed where they were already and they’ve still got one more year of U18 and hopefully they’ll be able to improve on their results.”
Butler also saluted the “phenomenal” job done by event organizers at RA Centre and Ottawa Hunt clubs, who welcomed 42 men’s and women’s teams in total for the Feb. 4-10 event. Newfoundland & Labrador topped Saskatchewan for the men’s crown, while the Team Nicholls Rideau Curling Club rink reached the first round of the playoffs.
“The energy from the crowd just fed into the girls’ energy and really helped them get through a very long and stressful week,” he added. “I’m so proud of how they rebounded and played a complete game (in the bronze medal match). They accomplished their goal, which was to medal at these championships.”
Butler believes “the sky’s the limit” for the rising Team Acres curlers.
“I think they all have the right attitude,” he signalled. “They all have an incredible sense of sportsmanship and teamwork, and that’s a key component of any successful curling team. I think they all have a very bright future in the sport.”
