Joel Jordison knows he hasn’t peaked too early this year.
After a rough start to the curling season, the Moose Jaw skip and his Ford Curling Centre foursome are headed to the SaskTel Tankard Men’s Southern playdowns in Estevan today with as much confidence as they have had all season.
After reaching the final of a spiel in Regina two weeks ago, the Jordison rink went unbeaten in the Region 6 playdowns in Moose Jaw last weekend.
“We’re pretty positive I guess,” said Jordison. “We’ve been playing a little bit better than we have all year. Everybody’s expectations are cautious still because we have had a bit of a rough year in terms of getting the team on the same page and everyone functioning together. It is coming along here, slowly but surely.”
The caution is understandable when you consider the start the new foursome has had to the season.
Jordison and his rink of third Jason Ackerman, second Brent Goeres and lead Curtis Horwath went to six World Curling Tour events. In their first four stops they won only once in 13 tries. They won more games than they lost in their two WCT stops in November, but still posted a 9-18 record on the tour.
“We definitely haven’t set ourselves up to be the favourites by any means,” said Jordison with a chuckle. “We’ve had a pretty slow fall. We played a lot, but it was everything we could do to just win a game, let alone do well in spiels. I think we’re maybe starting to turn the corner here, but I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”
There are 16 rinks competing in a triple-knockout format at southerns.
Assiniboia is represented by Jason Weal, Norm Kinchen, Ian Coghill and Claive Wilson
Brent Gedak and his Estevan rink of John Aston, Derek Owens and Malcolm Vanstone has plenty of Moose Jaw ties.
Jordison will open play at 1 p.m. against Clayton Wicks from Swift Current. Gedak faces Swift Current’s Reagan Hadden.
