Gilbert Plains Butch Mouck and his foursome are heading to the Manitoba Senior Men's Provincial Championships.
Mouck and his foursome beat Dauphin's Ray Baker and his foursome yesterday, in the final of the Neil Andrews Legends Classic at the Brandon Curling Club.
The final was 6-2.
"It was awesome to win the first event of the year and lock up our spot into the provincials," said Mouck. "It can be a long grind if you don't qualify early. It's nice to get our spot and now we can just put our focus on gearing up for the big event."
Before this weekend's tournament, Mouck and his foursome only played in a couple games in the Super League in Brandon. But, despite it being so early in the season, the foursome came out firing on all cylinders.
"We came out playing really well," said Mouck. "We played those couple games before at the club, so we were comfortable with the ice. We went at the end of last year to see Lorne Hamblin at the high-performance camp and just got kind of tuned up. We were definitely technically sound to start the season this year, and it showed."
The Provincial Championships aren't set to go until February. That'll give Mouck and his foursome lots of time to prepare.
"We'll go to three or four bonspiels now and play against the same calibre of team," said Mouck. "We'll also probably head back to Morris a couple times so we can get tuned up again."
Last year the foursome lost on a measurement in the tie-breaker game at the provincials. If they won that game, they would have advanced to the final four. Heading into this year's edition of the Championships, Mouck knows they can play with anyone.
"We've played all these teams, and we know we can beat them if we play well," said Mouck. "We're going in positive, and if we play well, we think we'll have a solid chance."
Photo Credit - CHRIS JASTER/THE BRANDON SUN.
