The Ravens men’s curling team captured the gold medal at the Curling Canada University Championship in Fredericton this week. It capped off a historic 2018-19 season for the team, which had already won the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) Men’s Championship in February.
Carleton won the national championship on Mar. 19 with a decisive 10-4 win in the gold medal game against the Memorial University Sea-Hawks. It was the first-ever nationals title for the team.
Pitted against seven other teams from across the country, the Ravens started the tournament strong with a 9-4 round robin victory over the defending Canadian champions, the University of Alberta Golden Bears, on March 15.
However, the Ravens stumbled after their opening win. They squared off against the eventual runners-up, Memorial University, in their second game, but lost by a nail-biting 7-6 decision.
“We played a really good second game, a really tight game,” Ravens skip Cameron Goodkey said. “Unfortunately, we lost it on the last rock.”
Carleton followed that loss with a second one, a lopsided 11-4 defeat at the hands of the Western University Mustangs. With just one win to accompany their two losses in the standings, the Ravens were in sixth place with just four games remaining.
“Our third game was a little rough,” said Goodkey. “After that, we knew that we pretty much had to win out.”
And winning out was exactly what they did. Under coach Tom Sinclair and alongside lead Brendan Acorn, second Morgan Calwell, third Mackenzie Calwell, and alternate Wesley Stakes, Goodkey led Carleton to a dominant tournament finish.
Hours after their loss to Western University, the Ravens defeated the Dalhousie University Tigers 9-3. The next day, Carleton beat the University of Lethbridge Pronghorns 10-3 before vanquishing the hometown team, the University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds, by a score of 9-5.
With a top-four finish required in round robin play to qualify for the playoffs, the Ravens solidified their second-place position on Mar. 18 with a 8-4 win over the Brock University Badgers in their final round robin game.
The Ravens faced a big test in their first playoff game: the defending champion Golden Bears. Locked into a semi-final matchup, the Ravens had momentum on their side.
After a blank first end, the Ravens burst out to a 2-0 lead by the end of the third end. They extended that lead to 4-1 after the sixth end, but Alberta responded with two points in the seventh to make it 4-3.
However, in crunch time, the Ravens came through. They put three points on the board in the eighth end, establishing a big 7-3 lead over Alberta with just two ends remaining.
Although the Golden Bears responded with a three-point end of their own in the ninth, the Ravens held the critical hammer entering the deciding 10th end. They made the most of it, sealing an 8-6 victory and advancing to the gold medal final.
Riding a five-game win streak, the Ravens met the Memorial Sea-Hawks in the final. As the 2017 national champions, Memorial proved to be a tough matchup for the Ravens in their previous round robin meeting.
This time, the Ravens stayed in control. They never trailed in the gold medal game, trading blows with Memorial before stealing a critical two points in the sixth end to go up 7-2.
“Steals don’t come easy,” said Goodkey. “We set that end up nice and, fortunately, got a good miss from them.”
Although Memorial made it a 7-4 contest in the seventh end, Carleton responded with a finishing strike in the eighth, adding three points to their lead to make it 10-4.
Playing with just three players after second Ryan McNeil Lamswood left the game due to illness, the depleted and defeated Sea-Hawks conceded the national championship game to the Ravens after eight ends.
For Goodkey, the victory came in just his sixth year of curling, total. Although the Ravens reached new heights in 2018-19, Goodkey believes that he still has unfinished business with the Carleton curling team.
“This is my third year with the team,” said Goodkey. “It probably won’t be my last.”
Photo provided
