King enjoys Montana’s Brier experience
- 15 hours ago
- 3 min read
Jeff Tribe
Advocate Contributor
Jayden King did not end up kissing a cod and getting screeched in while at the Montana’s Brier in St. John’s Newfoundland.
But the Courtland curler did embrace wide-ranging opportunity to learn from the personal and competitive experience it offered.
“We can build and hopefully go back to next year’s Brier and do one better.”
The Team Ontario rink – King as skip, vice Dylan Niepage, second Owen Henry, lead Victor Pietrangelo, alternate Spencer Dunlop and coach Morgan Lavell - collectively wanted to make a good run at the Brier.
“Not just be there for the experience,” said King.
They accomplished that goal by qualifying for the playoffs with a 5-3 round-robin record. Ultimately, King and company would exit via a 12-6 loss to Newfoundland’s own Brad Gushue Friday, March 6. Trailing 5-4 in the seventh end, they elected to take some higher risk moves in order to try and win, not merely prolong the game, seeing the final score extend as a result.
“Those are the chances you have to take in order to try and get ahead of the good teams.”
King had opened the draw Friday, Feb. 27 with an 11-4 win over Nova Scotia.
Stepping onto the ice for their first Brier on a Friday night with Newfoundland fans passionately supporting Gushue, Young and others as they did throughout pool play and beyond, would remain King’s ‘aha moment’ they had arrived.
“The arena was packed to the brim.”
King backed up a strong opening with an 8-3 victory over PEI the following day.
“We were kind of rolling right along,” said King, pleased to have avoided a slow start and having to play catch-up for the duration, essentially falling out of playoff contention early.
Team Ontario dropped an 8-4 decision to Gushue in pool play, and then an 8-2 final to Olympic gold medallist Brad Jacobs, representing Canada. Falling to 2-2 against that level of teams was not entirely unexpected.
“We wanted to make sure we capitalized on the others,” said King.
Team Ontario got back in the winning column with an 8-3 success against Nunavut before dropping a 10-8 decision to Newfoundland and Labrador’s second team, Nathan Young. That loss made their final two pool play games effectively must wins against tough Quebec and Saskatchewan foursomes, Wednesday, March 4 and Thursday, March 5 by respective scores of 8-7 and 9-4.
“We won the games we had to,” said King, having projected the Quebec game a playoff qualification key prior to opening competition. “We were able to do that and make it to the playoffs on Friday.”
There is no shortage of high-calibre competition in Ontario, however facing each province’s best rinks, including some who are household names, provided both an opportunity and challenge to improve.
“We just had to execute more shots in a row and put more pressure on opponents.”
As mentioned, King did not find time to do the screeching in ceremony, caught up in the curling.
“That was the one thing we missed. Our families did it which was cool.”
They did manage to balance a good performance on the ice with taking in the experience however, doing some sightseeing and embracing the crowds, interacting with fans and media. Their team earned considerable media and fan attention as young, personable, and competitive - Niepage, born deaf, the first to compete at the Brier with cochlear implants, and King accepting his pioneering role as the its first Black skip, proud to represent that community along with his home curling club, Tillsonburg.
King extended thanks to his and the other curlers’ home communities, thoroughly appreciating the send-off and ongoing encouragement from his home town and curling club.
“We felt the overwhelming support even though we were so far away.”
King rated their overall experience a nine out of ten, both in terms of their curling performance and enjoying the atmosphere at Canadian men’s curling championships.
“We can’t wait to see what this experience means for us on the next steps in our curling journey and are excited to see what it brings when we go back.”