Curler right at home
By DOUG GRAHAM
THE WHIG-STANDARD
February 2, 2010
Napanee's Rob Dickson has played in the provincial men's curling championship before but the experience was nothing like yesterday's outing at the Strathcona Paper Centre.
Dickson came out of the reserve player pool to throw lead rocks for Brantford's Jay Young, after injuries took both Jay Allen and Chad Simpson out of play.
Dickson, who won a couple of games when he skipped at the Ontario event a few years ago, played front end for Greg Balsdon of Toronto in previous provincial trips.
He was thrilled to play in the men's championship in his home town.
"For sure I'm happy and a lot of people are, too. Hopefully it helps sell a few more tickets," said Dickson, who played the opening game -- a 9-7 loss to four-time reigning champion Glenn Howard.
Allen came out to test his shoulder and play last night's second game.
"He's going to see how it goes and then we'll see how it goes the rest of the week," said Dickson.
"If I only get into one game, it was pretty special to get to play the game against Glenn Howard."
A member of the tournament's host committee, Dickson believes the Tankard will be a tremendous boost to curling in Napanee.
"The volunteers are all from the curling club and they know what it is like but they are going to see more of a competitive edge to curling," Dickson said.
The host committee has nearly 200 volunteers, not only from the Napanee and District Curling Club but from Softball Napanee and hockey groups.
"Peter Wagar runs the (Napanee) Raiders and he's here volunteering. He just loves what this brings out to the arena," Dickson said.
"People here definitely back everything that they do in Napanee."
Two other players celebrating a homecoming while curling here are Steve Small, the second on the Rob Lobel rink from Whitby, and Paul Moffatt, the lead on Kirk Ziola's London Highland rink.
"Absolutely it is almost like playing in front of the home town fans," said Small, who played both as a junior at the Royal Kingston Curling Club and while attending Queen's University.
Small was the second on Noel Herron's Kingston rink when it went to the world junior championship in Scotland in 1991.
"Over five years in Kingston I made a lot of great friends," said Small, a sales rep for IBM Canada Ltd. "A lot of them are still in the area. It's really great to come here and see those faces again."
Moffatt, who played junior out of Cataraqui Golf and Country Club on a rink that had Dickson on it, is now a teacher in Waterloo.
"It's good to have family in the stands," said Moffatt, who has his mother, Barbara Moffatt, retired from nursing and working as an executive member for the Alzheimer Society, in attendance for the week.
A university friend of John Morris, the third on Kevin Martin's Canadian Olympic men's rink, Moffatt played out west with Morris for a year before coming back to Ontario.
Moffatt believes the Napanee competition will be entertaining.
"It's tough to argue the Howard rink isn't the favourite," he said, "but this is such a strong field. People don't realize the kind of depth and strength there is in Ontario curling these days.
"There are probably six or seven teams I wouldn't be surprised to see in the playoffs, or even win it."