The Queen’s curling teams travelled to Guelph last week to compete in the inaugural Canadian University Curling Championships. The men’s team was defeated in the quarter-final, while the women’s team lost a playoff match for a quarter-final berth. Featuring 19 men’s teams and 17 women’s teams, the tournament involved a six-game round robin, with the top eight teams from each side advancing to the quarter-final stage.
The men’s team of skip Jonathan Beuk, Jeff Grant, Andrew Inouy and Chadd Vandermade started the competition in convincing fashion, building a 5-1 record in the round robin to finish tied for the top spot in their group. Vandermade, the team’s alternate player, stepped in to throw lead stones when second Greg Day was unable to attend
the tournament.
Beuk said the team was excited by their strong start.
“I don’t think anyone wanted to say it, but we were all playing really well and we started to believe in ourselves,” he said. “Through the entire round robin I thought we were pretty dominant and everything seemed to be going our way. … Even the games that were close we were in control the entire game. We were hoping to carry that over into the play-offs.”
In the quarter-finals, the Gaels faced off against the University of Calgary, skipped by two-time world junior champion Charley Thomas. Queen’s chased the game after surrendering three points in the third end and lost 6-4, while Calgary eventually won the silver medal.
“Their team had a lot of experience in big games. We were making small mental errors because we didn’t have a lot of big-game experience,” Beuk said. “You can’t leave a guy like Charley Thomas a shot for three. … He’s probably going to make it.”
The Queen’s women’s rink also advanced to the elimination round with a round-robin record of 3-3 but lost in a tie-breaker game against the University of Guelph.
Scott Davey, head coach of both Queen’s teams, said the women’s team of skip Lisa Farnell, Kim Brown, Courtney Anderson, Ali Cummings and alternate Brittany Prevost played well and could have progressed further into the tournament.
“You’re up against pretty tough competition,” he said.
“[Guelph was] a very good team who had also played quite well all week. Certainly we could have beaten them and they could have beaten us. On that day, they got us.”
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