Three more men’s teams have earned berths to the 2020 BC Men’s Curling Championship.

The teams to earn their spot in the championship taking place in Cranbrook from Jan. 28 to Feb. 2 are Team Tardi, Team Wenzek and Team Geall.

They will join defending champions, Team Cotter, at the provincial event in Cranbrook, which decides the BC team that will travel to the Tim Hortons Brier in Kingston (Feb. 29 to Mar. 8).

The berths were awarded because this past weekend marked the end of the BC Men’s Curling Tour and the BC men’s Canadian Team Ranking System (CTRS) points race. Curl BC awards one berth to the BC Men’s Curling Championship to the team with the most points on the CTRS list by the end of November. Two berths are available to the top two BC Men’s Curling Tour teams who have not already qualified.

The team with the most CTRS and Tour points was Team Tardi, with Tyler Tardi (Surrey), Sterling Middleton (Fort St John), Jordan Tardi (Surrey) and Alex Horvath (Victoria). Having reached the quarterfinals in Penticton this past weekend, the team that curls out of Langley Curling Centre accumulated 76.4494 points on the tour (which counts the top four results on the tour) and 115.621 CTRS points, 55 points ahead of second-placed Team Cotter. Tyler Tardi and Middleton are two-time world junior gold medallists,  while Jordan Tardi won a junior world championship with the team in 2018 and Alex Horvath won a junior world championship with the team in 2019.

Team Cotter, from Vernon/Kelowna, will return to the BC Men’s Curling Championship as defending champions, so they will not be in the race for the two tour berths. Skip Jim Cotter is joined by Steve Laycock, Andrew Nerpin and Rick Sawatsky. Jim Cotter jointly holds the record (along with Bernie Sparkes) for the most BC Men’s Curling titles ever recorded with eight purple hearts to his name. Team Cotter reached second place on the tour with 53.5858 points and second place on the CTRS list with 59.068 points.

With Team Tardi winning the CTRS berth and Team Cotter returning as defending champions, Team Wenzek from Royal City in third place and Team Geall from Abbotsford in fourth place earned the tour berths.

Team Wenzek is skipped by 2016 BC junior champion Daniel Wenzek, along with reigning BC Mixed champion and 2014 BC junior champion Cameron de Jong (third). Cody Tanaka, who won the BC Mixed title in 2018 and the national Travelers Club Curling Championship in 2018, plays second. Nicholas Umbach, a former juvenile (U17) champion, plays lead.

Skip Sean Geall is a two-time BC men’s champion and is joined by Jared Kolomaya, Sebastien Robillard and Nicholas Meister.

The remaining 12 men’s berths will be decided at regional playdowns being held from Dec. 13-15 and at an open playdown being held in Penticton from Jan. 10-12. Follow along at playdowns.curlbc.ca for qualification and championship results.

The 2020 BC Men’s Curling Championship, along with the 2020 Scotties BC Women’s Curling Championship, presented by Best Western, will take place at Western Financial Place in Cranbrook from Jan. 28 to Feb. 2. Visit http://www.westernfinancialplace.ca/events/view/bc-curling-championships-1 for ticket information.

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About Curl BC
Curl BC is the provincial sport governing body responsible for the development, promotion and organization of curling in British Columbia. Curl BC is also responsible for the championship system that declares provincial representation at National events. In cooperation with its Members, Curl BC provides services to both competitive and recreational curlers, including a variety of adaptive groups.