It took a little longer than they would have liked, but 15 Wing Moose Jaw is in the win column at the Canadian Armed Forces Canada West Curling Championship.
Cpl. Jonathan Benson and his rink of third Sgt. Jay McLellan, second WO Robert Cogswell and lead Capt. Jean Doyon took a 9-2 victory over CFB Edmonton in round robin action Wednesday afternoon at the Moose Jaw Events Centre, improving to 1-3 for the tournament and -- most importantly -- keeping their playoff hopes alive.
“Winning is nice, it gives us a little boost, for sure,” Benson said shortly after their six-end victory. “We started out slow and it kind of rattles you a bit thinking of the shots you missed that could have gone either way. You could play the same game 10 times this week and get 10 different results, so this was good, we need this to keep us in the hunt and maybe we can get a couple big wins to get in the playoffs.”
If it wasn’t for bad luck, Benson wouldn’t have had any through the first two days of the event.
15 Wing opened with a tough 8-7 loss to CFB Shilo before dropping a 9-4 decision to CFB Equimalt and absorbing a 16-0 defeat to 4 Wing Cold Lake in their opening game Wednesday.
That made their game against Edmonton all the more important, and that victory means two more wins will all but guarantee a playoff spot. 15 Wing takes on one of the pre-tournament favourites in 19 Wing Comox (3-1) in the evening draw Wednesday, followed by 17 Wing Winnipeg (1-4) to close out the round robin Thursday morning.
The top four teams advance to the semifinals at 1 p.m. Thursday, with the winners there advancing to the final at 9 a.m. Friday.
Benson and crew are all too familiar with what can happen once they hit the playoffs. 15 Wing squeaked in as the final team last year, but upset Comox in the semifinal before falling to Winnipeg in the gold medal game.
“It’s the same as last year, you just have to get into the playoffs and you could end up in the final like we did,” Benson said. “So we’ll just see what happens the rest of the way here.”
Cold Lake is unbeaten at 4-0 heading into play Wednesday night, with Comox (3-1), Shilo (3-2), Equimalt (2-2), Moose Jaw (1-3), Edmonton (1-3) and Winnipeg (1-4) rounding out the draw.
