Coming out of Wednesday’s game against Turkey, Team Canada (represented by a foursome that curls out of Langley) is holding strong to playoff contention.
The team – made up of Cloverdale brothers Tyler (skip) and Jordan Tardi (second), Langley’s Nicholas Meister (lead), and Burnaby’s Sterling Middleton (vice-skip), as well as alternate Nicholas Rabl – are 6-2 in the VoIP Defender World Junior Curling Championships in Gangneug, South Korea this week – aspiring to bring home the gold.
“We don’t want to look too far ahead, we just want to take it one at a time, but we’re feeling confident,” said Tyler. They won 7-5 in an extra end win over Turkey.
“You would have never guessed that those guys are 0-6 right now,” Tyler said of their latest opponents.
“They were playing really good considering their record – hat’s off to them. This is beyond stressful.
“They were really trying hard to win that game. They were playing unreal, so huge credit to them. I feel a mixture of every emotion. I’m a little stressed, a little relieved, but happy. I’m just trying to lower my heart-rate right now,” said the 18-year-old entrepreneurial leadership student from Kwantlen Polytechnic University.
With just one more games still to go in the round-robin play against Scotland, they are in holding onto their second place status. They’re trailing the Korean team that has only lost one game out of eight, so far – and has already secured its spot in the playoffs.
“We’re getting better in most of the games, so we’ll see what’s in store for the rest of the week. To be honest, we’re pretty close to our peak performance,” Tyler said. “There are just a few very minor things and we’ll be fairly tough to beat in my opinion.”