Thanks to the holidays, the Langley-based Team Tardi rink didn’t have a lot of practice time in the week leading up to the 2019 BC Junior Curling Championships, which get under way Friday at the Vernon Curling Club.
Wednesday of last week was the last day Tyler Tardi, Sterling Middleton, Matthew Hall and, Alex Horvath could practice before Vernon.
Tardi said because rinks were shutting down for the holiday season, “it’s a little tough this time of year” to get ice time.
He said the team tried to make their last day count.
“[We were] tuning up a few shots that maybe we were struggling with a bit,” he said.
They didn’t expect any more time until the start of the series.
Fortunately, Vernon is familiar territory, Tardi said.
“We know that club pretty well.”
The team came in first in the BC Junior Men’s Curling Tour with 260 points, winning both the Anita Cochrane Memorial and the Rick Cotter Memorial.
Skip Tardi and third Middleton will be looking to defend their title of BC Junior Men’s Champions in Vernon.
One potential source of stress heading into Vernon was eliminated when Tardi and Dezaray Hawes won the 2018 NextGen Mixed Doubles Curling Championship in Estevan earlier this month (Dec.9).
They won in a draw to the button tiebreaker after a 7-7 tie.
As a result, the duo booked a direct entry to the Canadian 2019 Mixed Doubles Championship.
If they didn’t win it then, Tardi said there was a chance scheduling conflicts would keep him from playing in another qualifier for the Canadian event.
“That was pretty stressful,” he said.
“This was pretty much our one shot to qualify.”