A long distance relationship has paid off.
All season, the curling quartet of skip Tyler Klymchuk and lead Rhys Gamache — who are both out of the Langley Curling Club — and Victoria Curling Club’s Corey Chester and Sanjay Bowry, the team’s third and second, respectively, have ferried back and forth between the Lower Mainland and Victoria. They are coached by Victoria’s Todd Troyer.
Chester and Bowry would typically come over on Wednesdays so the team could play their league matches out in New Westminster. And on Sundays, it would be Klymchuk and Gamache’s turn to visit Victoria, catching an early ferry, training all day, and then returning home.
But it all paid off as the quartet captured the Tim Horton’s junior men’s provincial championships.
The event, for curlers 20 years old and younger, was held Jan. 1 to Jan. 6 at the Coquitlam Curling Club.
“That was definitely one of the goals that we set for ourselves at the start of the year,” Klymchuk said.
“We have put in a lot of hard work, a lot of ferry trips, and it definitely feels good to win.”
The Klymchuk rink went 7-0 in the round robin.
“We just went into each game with a game plan and tried to execute it as best we could,” Klymchuk said.
“We were fortunate enough to come out with a bunch of wins.”
In the provincial finals on Sunday night, the team faced Langley Curling Club’s Tardi rink, which is made up of skip Tyler Tardi, third Jordan Tardi, second Nicholas Meister and lead Zachary Umbach. They are coached by Paul Tardi.
The Klymchuk rink scored four in the second end and never looked back, prevailing 9-4.
“Corey (Chester) made a real key triple in the second end to leave us lying four in the house,” Klymchuk described.
“That gave us quite the edge to the game.”
The Tardi rink was 5-2 and in third place after the round robin, but defeated the second-place Henderson rink 13-6.
The Klymchuk rink will now spend the next three weeks preparing for the junior national curling championships, which will be held Feb. 2 to Feb. 10 in Fort McMurray, Alta.
“We will keep doing our practices, tweaking a few things, making minor adjustments and just make sure we are ready to go when February rolls around,” Klymchuk said.
This will be the second time he has represented B.C. at the junior nationals, having also attended in 2010 with a different rink. They went 6-6 that year to finish in the middle of the pack.
“It will be nice to go back and get a second crack and do better than last time,” he said.
“It is going to be cold, but we are very excited.”