Thomas Scoffin earned bragging rights Monday night with a 6-4 victory over former teammates Mitch Young and Will Mahoney and his father Wade, the Yukon coach, at the Canadian junior men’s curling championships at Fort McMurray.
He also improved Alberta’s chances of being one of the four teams from Pool A advancing to the championship pool after the seven-team preliminary round-robin concludes Tuesday.
Scoffin and his Saville Centre rink of Dylan Gousseau and the Bucholz twins, Landon and Bryce, are 3-1 and trail only Ontario’s Aaron Squires (4-1) in their pool. Saskatchewan’s Brady Scharback and B.C.’s Tyler Klymchuk are both 3-2 while Yukon drops to 2-3.
“It was definitely a little strange,” Scoffin said about playing his former teammates and against his father. “Kudos to that team, they came to play today. They didn’t miss much; we really had to grind to get a win there.”
Scoffin, who shot a sizzling 89 per cent, led most of the way but needed a steal in 10 to win the game.
“You win this round. Great game though, keep up the great work,” Mahoney tweeted.
Alberta plays P.E.I. (2-3) at 1 p.m. and B.C. at 6 p.m.
In the junior women’s competition, Alberta skip Karynn Flory was tied for the top shooting percentage among skips after her first three games, but struggled at 41 per cent in an 8-1 loss to B.C.’s Corryn Brown on Monday.
The Crestwood Curling Club rink, which includes Holly Jamieson at third, Klara Smiley at second and Katie Roskewich at lead, also lost its early game 10-7 to Yukon’s Sarah Koltun to fall to 2-2.
Both Brown and Koltun lead Pool A with 4-1 records, while New Brunswick’s Jessica Daigle is 3-2.
Flory plays both New Brunswick and Newfoundland Labrador’s Carolyn Suley (2-3) on Tuesday to finish off the preliminary round-robin pool.
