TMU women’s curling wins OUA bronze, secures U Sports nationals berth
February 9, 2023
The Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) Bold women’s curling team showed their might when it mattered as they played their way to a bronze medal at the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) Championships this past weekend.
With the third-place finish, the Bold also earned themselves a trip to the U Sports National Championships which will be hosted in Sudbury, Ont., from March 15-19.
They will be one of three OUA teams at the event, alongside the OUA gold medal-winning McMaster Marauders and silver-medalists, the Laurentian Voyageurs, who are hosting the national event.
After a loss to the Laurier Golden Hawks in the quarter-finals last year following a 4-0 record in group play, the Bold came into this year’s competition seeking redemption. After a 7-1 record in OUA tournaments this season, the squad was feeling hungry and confident.
While they knew the competition was going to be tough, the team believed they could give any competition a run for their money—which is what they did.
On top of making their way through a group stage that required taking on four teams that finished with .500 or better records, the Bold won three one-point games in the last two days of the tournament, taking Guelph, Waterloo and Queen’s down to the wire.
The squad started their tournament on Feb. 3 with a 10-7 victory over the Western Mustangs followed by a 6-4 loss to the Trent Excalibur.
Carrying a 1-1 record into Saturday, the team needed to come up big against two teams with considerably larger curling programs—Guelph and Waterloo. After defeating Guelph 6-5, they found themselves on the wrong side of a lopsided game against the Warriors, which resulted in a 9-2 defeat.
A 2-2 record coming out of group play proved to be just enough for the Bold to qualify for the playoff rounds, entering as the eighth seed.
In the quarter-finals, they once again faced the Warriors, who finished the group stage with four one-sided victories. However, the TMU women flipped the script, managing to hold onto a 5-4 win despite Waterloo’s best attempts in the seventh and eighth ends.
TMU’s run for gold was cut short when they lost 6-4 to the Laurentian Voyageurs in the semi-finals. While the match started slow, it gave way to an exciting last three ends, with Laurentian scoring three in the final end.
The result meant a banner was out of the cards but a chance to take on the Queen’s Gaels for the bronze medal, as well as a U Sports nationals berth, was still a big opportunity. The two teams traded ends early, but the seventh end would turn the tables in TMU’s favour en route to a 6-5 victory.
Fourth-year lead Jessica Filipcic was named an OUA First Team All-Star for her play in the tournament, a title she also earned last year.
Clutch play in critical moments and consistency proved valuable for the Bold, who finished with a score differential of 37-45 but won more games than they lost.
With the 9-2 loss to Waterloo as an outlier among close games, the team is happy with their journey to a medal. It was their first since 2016-17 when the team won silver at the OUAs and qualified for U Sports nationals in only their second year of competition.
After seven games in three days, the Bold women will move onto a new segment of their season. The U Sports championships are a little over a month away, so they will continue training hard, practicing multiple times a week and playing in a club league at the Toronto Cricket Skating and Curling Club.
The TMU men’s curling team will hope to follow suit with their women’s curling counterparts when they head to the OUA Championships at the Peterborough Curling Club this weekend. They’ll kick off the tournament with a 9 a.m. matchup against the Waterloo Warriors on Feb. 10.
‘Our reason for being is to win OUA banners,’ TMU men’s curling heads to OUA championships
February 9, 2023
With past near-misses in the back of their minds, the Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) Bold men’s curling program has their sights set on championship banners at the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) championships.
Taking place on Feb. 10-12 at the Peterborough Curling Club, the tournament will feature 16 teams from across the province.
The TMU men earned the silver medal last season, falling to the Wilfred Laurier Golden Hawks in the finals after turning an opening game loss into a successful run to the final game.
Perry Marshall, the Bold’s head coach, said the team is confident things can go their way in a similar fashion to last year.
“We came very close to bringing home our first banner with these guys,” said Marshall. “I think they feel that’s a capability they have.”
The men will hope to build on the success of the TMU women’s team, who won a bronze medal and earned a U Sports National Championship berth at their tournament last weekend. The women’s team had to win three one-point games, reflecting the kind of competition that comes with university-level curling in Ontario.
The OUA Championships, like much of the curling world, have moved to a new format in recent years. 16 teams are now split into four pools with just four games of pool play, so two losses often mean missing the playoffs.
“[You have to] just assume that everybody is of a quality that you have to play well,” Marshall said. “We try and prepare for how well we need [the teams] to play and then how well we think they can play.”
In addition to a silver medal, last year’s squad was granted an opportunity to play in a qualifying tournament for the Fédération Internationale du Sport Universitaire (FISU) World University Games in Ottawa, where they played for the opportunity to represent Canada at the international competition. They will hope to draw on that experience as they seek the gold this year.
The FISU qualifying tournament was held Sept. 22-24 and the team finished fifth with a 2-3 record.
Third-year skip Weston Oryniak explained how the team was “happy just to be at the dance” and said they were able to gain valuable experience and confidence as they pursue OUA success this season.
“The couple of games we won there just highlighted the fact that we could compete at that high level,” Oryniak said. “We’re going to definitely take some of that experience into OUAs this year.”
The men currently hold an 8-1 record in tournament play against other OUA teams, highlighted by an undefeated first-place finish at the McMaster Invitational in January. Oryniak said the team was able to win at the tournament despite some “less than stellar” games.
“Anytime when you can win five games in a weekend, you’re gonna take that,” he said.
Marshall said the McMaster tournament was “an early taste” of what the team can do against strong opponents.
The men’s schedule is set for the group stage of the OUA tournament, with games against Waterloo, Queen’s, Algoma and Carleton spread across Friday and Saturday. If the tournament looks anything like the women’s did, there will be few easy games.
According to Oryniak, the team knows it will face stiff competition and that the tournament can come down to certain teams getting hot and stepping up in important games.
He said the team is more confident this year than last, as they are more cohesive. “I think the squad is firing on all cylinders right now,” he said. “As long as the bounces go our way, we have a good chance.”
In preparation for the big event, the team has been working hard. Along with regular practices, they play in a club league at the Toronto Cricket, Skating and Curling Club to stay sharp and improve ahead of the OUA competition.
Marshall explained that the league play allows the team to work on strategy, tactics and team dynamic, while the tournaments with peer schools are the real judge of where the team stands.
“Our reason for being is to win OUA banners, to make it to U Sports [nationals],” he said. “It’s not to win the club championship.”