The Manitoba Credit Unions Master Men's Provincial Curling Championships hosted by Curl Manitoba get underway on Thursday morning in Thompson and there will be some local representation.
Playing in the event for the first time, Ray Baker will skip a foursome. In fact, three-quarters of Baker's team competed at and won a national title at the Canada 55+ Games in Kamloops last year. This year's team includes Ray, Dwight Bottrell, Keith Pottle, and Glenn Rozak. Glenn of Dauphin was the lone player that was not on Team Baker at the Canada Games.
The team's seven-game round-robin opens against Len Loewen's rink at 9 on Thursday morning.
"We feel pretty good about the event heading in," said Baker. "It's obviously going to depend on how we're playing early on. It's a round-robin so it's really important to come out of the gates flying. We know we can, it's just about getting it done at the end of the day."
Team Baker's fifth game at the event will come against Randy Neufeld's rink, a foursome that is pencilled in as one of the favourites and the foursome then wraps up their round-robin against a team from the Parkland. At 12:30 on Sunday afternoon, it's Ray Baker's rink of Dauphin against Gilbert Plain's Butch Mouck and his foursome. Mouck's team includes Glenn Parrott, Dave Clark, and Bill Thiessen.
"Both of those teams are going to be difficult to say the least," ended Baker. "They're both very strong and know how to win. We'll hopefully put ourselves in a good position by that point in the week."
While the rest of Ray's team has played in this event before, it will be Baker's first.
