CANORA — After being cancelled due to the pandemic in 2020, the annual Canora Christmas Bonspiel was back to take over the ice once again at the Sylvia Fedoruk Centre on December 26 to 28.
Organizers like to promote the fun factor and keep the bonspiel relatively short, as many families have plans during the holiday season. Curlers of all ages took part, ranging from elementary students to seniors. As one of the younger participants commented, “Curling is fun, especially when it’s friends and family getting together and having a good time on the ice.”
A total of nine teams were entered in the round robin bonspiel, with each playing at least three games, while one team hit the ice four times due to the uneven number of teams.
The rink skipped by Brandon Zuravloff had the only perfect record, posting three straight wins, and was one of the youngest teams in the bonspiel. Curling with Zuravloff (2019 Canora Composite School graduate) was Ally Sleeva at third (2020 CCS graduate), Brandon’s sister Cassidy at second (Grade 12 student) and Ally’s sister Kailey at lead (Grade 11 student).
The Kody Rock foursome had an opportunity to match the Zuravloff team and also complete the bonspiel with a perfect record, but came up against the tough Al Palagian foursome in the final draw. It was a tight game throughout and turned out to be the only time in the bonspiel that a game went to an extra end. In the extra end, Rock had last rock and a raise attempt for the win, since Palagian’s counter was buried behind cover. The raise attempt came in on line, but turned out to be a few inches light, resulting in a win for Palagian.
But Rock didn’t go away empty handed, as his team won the double takeout contest for the final draw, which is an extra feature to add more fun to the bonspiel. The way it works is that during each draw, the ‘X’ is moved to a team’s line on the scoreboard each time that team makes a double takeout to remove two opposition stones. The last team with the ‘X’ wins the prizes.
In the final draw, Brandon and Cassidy Zuravloff each made double takeouts and it looked like they would take home the ‘X’ as well as a perfect record. But their game ended relatively quickly, and the Kody Rock team took away the ‘X’ with a late double takeout.
The nine foursomes involved in the bonspiel, all from Canora and the surrounding area, were skipped by: Al Palagian, Kody Rock, Brandon Zuravloff, Brendan Hlasychuk, Terry Wilson, Aaron Herriges, Rylan Palchewich, Kelly Beblow and Bob Kolodziejski.
